
Class 
Book. 



JLi 



CopyrigM 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 






ENGLAND AND 
GERMANY 

IN THE WAR 

Letters to the 
Department of State 



ROBERT ^THOMPSON 

American Consul, Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany 
{Resigned) 



CHAPPLE PUBLISHING COMPANY, LTD. 
BOSTON 



y* 



n* 



Copyright, 1915, by 
Robeet J. Thompson 



Published simultaneously in the 

United States, Great Britain, Canada 

and the British possessions 



A lie rechte vor behalten 
All rights of translation reserved 



SEP 27 1915 

©CLA410675 



Dedicated to 

Those Who Hold principle 
Above Position 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PUBLISHERS' PREFACE 5 

I INTRODUCTION 13 

II ORIGINAL LETTER TO SECRETARY OF STATE 21 

IH RESIGNATION 27 

IV GERMANY'S RISE AND ENGLAND'S DECLINE 33 

V DIPLOMACY'S ISOLATION OF GERMANY 47 

VI SEA tw. LAND MILITARISM 63 

VII CERTAIN ASPECTS OF GERMAN CULTURE ... 79 

VIII ATROCITIES ON THE FIELD AND IN THE 

PRESS 93 

IX THE BLOOD OF AMERICA 107 

X THE ATTITUDE AND DUTY OF AMERICA .... 115 



PUBLISHERS' PREFACE 



THIS book comprises a series of letters addressed 
to the Secretary of State by Mr. Robert J. 
Thompson, recently American consul at Aix-la- 
Chapelle, Germany, who resigned from his post, as the 
letters explain, purposely to be free from official 
restrictions in reporting facts of the European war 
situation as he has found them.* 

Mr. Thompson is a citizen of Chicago. He has spent 
close to ten years in the consular service in Germany 
and England, and has also spent much time in France, 
the beautiful Lafayette monument in Paris being the 
result of his suggestion and effort. 

He entered the foreign service upon the recom- 
mendation of friends among the business men of the 
country for the purpose of demonstrating what a 
successful business man might accomplish in the 
direction of extending American foreign trade. The 
character of his reports and observations reveal an 
independent point of view somewhat out of, if not 
above the ordinary. 

The letters set forth that their author is not pro- 
German, by predilection or inclination; rather that 
ties of blood, friendship, sentiment and intimate 



♦["Thompson's Letters" were first printed serially in the Chicago Tribune, 
from February 14 to February 21, 1915. This great newspaper claimed for 
that period the largest circulation it had had since the beginning of the war, 
attributing this gain to Mr. Thompson's letters. They created a sensation 
and much comment. 

It is due largely to the demand of the Tribune readers that these semi- 
official despatches extended and elaborated are now produced in book 
form.] — Publishers. 

(5) 



Publishers' Preface 

personal relation bind him to England and France; 
in view of which he submits that his conclusions in 
favor of Germany were forced upon him directly against 
his personal inclination. 

Of straight English descent, also bearing the high 
decoration of officer of the Legion of Honor of France, 
these facts would suggest that he has brought to the 
study of the situation in Europe an unbiased mind 
free from all racial prejudice. His interpretation of 
Germany's position in the war and in the world is 
from a source not German, but purely American. 

The actuating cause of Mr. Thompson's withdrawal 
from the service was the receipt from the Department 
of State, on November 5, 1914, of an official instruction 
ordering him to discontinue certain investigations 
which he had begun, more particularly in respect to 
reported acts of cruelty and reprisal, credited to Bel- 
gians, Germans and French, upon the scene of war. 
The official instruction referred to came to him as the 
response of the government to a letter which he 
had addressed to the Department of State on Sep- 
tember 17, 1914, and which is included in this series 
of notable letters. 

*As a sidelight on the character of the author and his 
activities at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), the western 
center of German war operations, we reproduce here a 
tribute from the pen of Mr. James O'Donnell Bennett, 
staff correspondent of the Chicago Tribune: 

Aachen, Germany, Jan. 1. — Who is the best friend of the 
troubled alien, moneyless and all at sea, in northern Germany, 
these days? 

Thompson, from Chicago. 

Who deals in the course of one day with the affairs of Germans, 
Englishmen, Frenchmen, Russians, Swiss, and Japanese, and 
(6) 



Publishers* Preface 

at the end of the day has them all looking to him as a kind of 
international arbiter of individual troubles? 

Thompson, from Chicago. 

Who escorts a distracted Englishwoman wa;> up to Crefeld 
that she may visit her relatives, who are prisoners of war there? 
And who sends her back over the Holland border with tears of 
gratitude in her eyes for his zeal and for the courtesy of the 
German officers? 

Thompson, from Chicago. 

Who gets American correspondents invited to spend a week 
on the German battlefront in France or at the great headquarters 
of the German armies? 

Thompson, from Chicago. 

Who has taken over the work of half a dozen other consuls 
who have been banished from Germany? 

Thompson, from Chicago. 

Whether his own country appreciates it or not, the truth is 
that Robert J. Thompson, American consul at Aachen, has been 
of more help to more people than any other official American 
stationed in Germany since the outbreak of the war. 

The position of this border city is partly the cause of that; 
his own willing spirit is the other half of the explanation. 

Aachen commands the roads leading into Holland and Bel- 
gium and to the great German cities of Cologne and Dusseldorf. 
It is the headquarters for perplexity and the rallying point for 
aliens who want to get out of Germany or further into Germany. 

Dealing directly with the laconic German authorities, they 
are likely to receive terse answers or to encounter wearing delays. 

Then they turn to Mr. Thompson, and it is Mr. Thompson 
who alleviates suspicion, smooths away difficulties, and turns 
rancor into a good understanding. 

He can ask much of Germany because the Germans trust him 
and because they know he never will ask too much. 

In fact, he has ceased to be an individual and has become a 
kind of institution — combination of post office, bank, bureau of 
inquiry and domestic adviser. 

He calms hysterical women and reunites husbands and wives 
whom the chances of war have widely separated. He telephones 
and telegraphs until he has got the unsound passports of rattle- 
brained aliens visaed into some kind of order and authenticity. 
(7) 



Publisher {>' Preface 

He stakes the penniless, seldom with any assurance that he will 
ever see the color of hi3 money again. 

He extricates incompetents and busybodies from troubles into 
which there was not the slightest excuse for their getting them- 
selves, and at parting he gently impresses upon them that war 
is war and that the curious American seeking "a bit of adven- 
ture" by going into Belgium, would more wisely transfer his 
operations to Alaska or the Sandwich islands. 

He negotiates the checks of persons who placidly wonder why 
a German hotel keeper will not accept a check on an English 
bank when the two nations are in a life and death struggle. 

He hunts for and finds American correspondents with whom 
their papers are ^everishly trying to get in touch. And he receipts 
for and forwards batches of letters which come to him halfway 
across the empire from correspondents in Berlin who cannot 
otherwise be sure that their papers ever will hear from them. 

He gets stuck for cable tolls and he grins. 

He reaches the affections of German officers when he goes 
for automobile benzol, which civilians are not supposed to have, 
by saying, "It is for the fatherland." Then they choke up and 
fill the tanks to overflowing. 

He forwards gifts sent from foreign lands to prisoners of war 
in Germany, and to loquacious aliens he says things which cause 
it to dawn on them that fluency in slander of Germany is no 
proof of courage. 

It is marvelous how he carries water on both shoulders with- 
out truckling. Yet the explanation seems to be the simple 
one that he is patient and on the square. He is tactful with- 
out deviousness, and he can be agreeable without recourse to 
flattery. 

Twenty-two years ago Mr. Thompson was a newspaper re- 
porter in Chicago. That was just before the world's fair, and he 
was working on the old Times. There were rumors of dissensions 
among the fair directors, and the Times knew that Thompson, 
who had been assigned to the world's fair beat, knew the 
facts. 

He acknowledged that he did, but he refused to write the story 
on the grounds that it would work harm to the whole exposition 
project. He was discharged. 

He says now that no dismissal could have been luckier for 
(8) 



Publishers* Preface 

him, for it brought him into relations with many important 
men and led him into a larger career than newspaper reporting. 

Years later he became the father of the project for the pres- 
entation of a statue of Lafayette to France by America. 

That is why Robert J. Thompson wears in his lapel today 
the red button of an officer of the Legion of Honor. 



In connection with his career as an American consul, 
the following London dispatch, written by Frederic 
William Wile of the London Times, further empha- 
sizes that the broad life activities of Mr. Thompson 
are not prescribed by national boundaries. 



London, Jan. 9. — Robert J. Thompson, a former Chicago 
newspaper man, now American consul at Aachen, Germany, 
while touring the French battlefields recently with members of 
the German staff, ran across the grave of a French soldier. The 
marking at the head of the grave bore the name, August Hen- 
nocque de Lafayette. The fallen soldier was a direct descendant 
of the Marquis de Lafayette, who aided the soldiers of the 
colonies in the American Revolution. 

The descendant of Lafayette was the second lieu tenant of the 
Thirteenth French Dragoons, and his body lay buried in a garden 
near the town of Conflans. The grave of young Lafayette was 
not discovered by Thompson until four months after he had been 
slain in battle with the Germans. 

Young Lafayette, together with Mr. Thompson's son, Paul, 
who then was a school boy of Chicago, unveiled the Lafayette 
monument given to the French republic by the school children 
of America in 1900. 

The father of the slain Lafayette is attached to the general 
staff of the French army. 

Consul Thompson sailed from London today on the liner 
Transylvania for a sixty days' leave of absence from his post at 
Aachen. Aachen has been Germany's principal military gateway 
to the west since the war started. 

"Four million troops have passed my door since the war 
started," Consul Thompson said today. 

(9) 



Publishers' Preface 

At no time in the history of civilization have the 
people of the world, individually, been so intensely 
absorbed from every angle on any subject as in the 
causes and progress of the European war. 

In spite of racial prejudices, there is a universal and 
growing demand for fair play, and a desire to get at all 
the facts from all sides. When the war blaze burst 
forth on July 31, 1914, Mr. Robert J. Thompson was 
stationed as American consul at Aix-la-Chapelle, 
Germany. This was the center around which occurred 
the initial stirring incidents of military operations. 
When hostilities opened, every correspondent, and 
many prominent Americans who were there felt the 
shock of the war thunderbolt, and insist that Consul 
Thompson in his work typified the ideal diplomat and 
American consul. The manner in which he pulled on 
and off his white gloves in the midst of a group of ex- 
cited people, while deliberating on this or that question, 
remaining absolutely neutral and cool-headed, keeping 
both ears open to the sympathetic appeals of citizens 
of the nations at war, as well as to the appeal of Ameri- 
cans and other aliens, was an experience that tested 
his perfect poise. He was master of the situation. 

Years of public service and careful observation had 
prepared him for this very exigency for which he has 
received the unstinted appreciation of all concerned, 
including our own state department and other foreign 
offices. The mere description of his work was praise 
indeed, dear to an American. He was doing so much 
and saying so little that a record of those eventful days 
at Aix-la-Chapelle remains an important chapter in 
American consular history of international importance. 

However much readers may disagree with Mr. 
Thompson in some of his conclusions, he has a pro- 

(10) 



Publishers* Preface 

found and thorough way of presenting his views which 
are not the result of mere affirmation, but an analysis 
of cause and effect, and concrete facts and conditions. 
The powerful and predominant note in these letters, 
is the practical plan which the author offers for the 
solution of international problems and the permanent 
abolishment of war, the one thought uppermost in 
the mind of all the world today. 

In his epistolary discussions there is always apparent 
an incisive grasp of those vital and essential points 
that at least modify emotional prejudices if not change 
convictions. His work impresses readers with the 
feeling that he is a thinker and that his point of view 
is based upon personal observations made with pains- 
taking carefulness which recognizes that the most 
logical conclusion upon any subject must come after 
a comparative and thorough analysis of events and 
things clear to the physical vision as well as to academic 
research. 

THE PUBLISHERS. 



(ii) 



INTRODUCTION 



American Consulate, 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany. 

To the Honorable, 

The Secretary of State, 
Washington, D. C. 
Sir: — 

I have the honor to state that, having 
been accustomed during the years I have 
spent in the Consular Service, to address the 
reports of my investigations to the Secretary 
of State, I purpose now to continue that 
practice and present herewith the first of a 
series of open letters, addressed to you, 
which will contain facts which I have gathered 
and conclusions which I have reached in 
relation to Germany and England and the 
present war. 

I feel that I am warranted in following 
this course for the reason that the facts 
which I have gathered, and which I shall 
submit, have been acquired during my long 
service — practically a decade — as American 
Consul in the two countries named, including 
five months' presence at the practical seat of 
war. d3) 



14 England and Germany 

Because of the department's instruction 
to make neither investigations nor reports 
on the serious — and at that time acute — 
subject of military reprisals, I have withheld 
all of my observations and reports, until my 
resignation would give me freedom to speak 
fully and in direct accordance with the facts. 

A sense of duty is involved in my action, 
as I feel that the atmosphere should be 
cleared, and that our fitness to sit at the 
great conciliation and arbitration board, 
which shall eventually adjudicate the claims 
of the contending nations, and shape the 
future policy of the world, depends upon .our 
true understanding of the whole subject — 
which can come only through knowledge of 
all of the facts of the case. 

Having entered the Consular service for 
the sole purpose of serving, and not of filling 
a soft political job, I sincerely regard my 
present action as a continuation of service, 
the value of which, I feel, will be enhanced 
by the procedure of addressing these letters 
to you. They are, as you will note, of a 
character supplementary to those already 
forwarded to you, from Aix-la-Chapelle, 
where the entire series was prepared, in the 
line of my duty (as I saw it) as a representative 
of the American people on the ground. 



Introduction 15 

My desire is to give testimony in as 
formal, impartial form as I may be able to 
submit it — such testimony as history will 
demand, and sound statesmanship will 
require. 

The modern world is at war. An appalling 
social cataclysm is enveloping its leading 
peoples, destroying the lives of hundreds of 
thousands of them, the most vigorous repre- 
sentatives of the main races of the world, 
whose loss means a vital subtraction of 
virility from the whole human race. 

To be a witness of this phenomenon — this 
orgasm of destruction — and to fail to realize 
its significance, or to apprehend its conse- 
quences, and, especially, to fail to investigate 
and analyze its precedents, would be to fail 
in my duty — that larger duty which every 
man owes to his fellows — to society — and 
which is greater than his duty to himself. 

We, who are living at the present time, 
have a great responsibility, which rests 
directly upon us — the responsibility of ascer- 
taining the facts behind the great catastrophe 
that has overwhelmed Europe; and our first 
need and duty, in this direction, is to lay 
aside both favoritism and prejudice. 

We must be loyal to facts, or we are traitors 
to life. 



16 England and Germany 

The pressure of facts is the real cause of 
my action in resigning from the Consular 
service. No other impulse has directed me. 
I have not been moved to this decision in 
order to take up my pen in behalf or in defense 
of Germany. What I shall state will be 
evidence in behalf of civilization, for sound 
civilization is what we must have if we are 
to be rid of war and the causes of war, both 
desultory and direct. 

If what I say of Germany and England 
may savor of admiration for one and criticism 
of the other, let me say that my statements 
will be the result of conviction — of facts 
which have been impressed upon me and 
conclusions which have been forced upon 
me, as a result of years of observation and 
study, and in spite of an unsympathetic 
attitude and adverse conclusions previously 
formed. 

Also, if my phrase, at times, may seem 
extreme or partisan, it is because my convic- 
tions having been formed slowly, if not 
grudgingly, have at last become deep and 
positive, and thus may color and shape my 
expression. 

It will be my endeavor to interpret, in 
part, the German people, their motives and 
achievements, to the American people; to 



Introduction 17 

portray them as I have found them actually 
to be, and in this portrayal to show, at least 
in a small degree, the part they more recently 
have taken in the progress of the world, and 
why the success of their institutions and the 
potentiality of their national life lead them 
to wish to perpetuate both and extend them 
as they grow. 

If in my report of the conduct of Germany, 
leading up to and during the present war, 
I submit facts which may be in contradiction 
of statements made by others, I do this, not 
in a spirit of contention, but in the cause of 
justice and progress — to clear away the 
accumulation of exaggeration and misrepre- 
sentation that now hides the foundation of 
truth, upon which all conclusion and action 
must be based. 

Few will say that Germany has had equal 
access with its opponents to the great court 
of the sympathy and support of the world. 
Especially at the beginning of hostilities, 
when all stood aghast, stunned by the stu- 
pendous convulsion, instinctively and impul- 
sively seeking its cause and source — the 
nation to be blamed — more especially at this 
crucial time, during these critical first days, 
when public opinion was being framed largely 
upon the proclamations and representations 



18 England and Germany 

of her enemies, was Germany deprived, 
utterly, of approach to the public ear. 

This fact should not be lost sight of in 
estimating the causes of the present state of 
public opinion in the United States; and it 
affords a reason for those who know Germany 
to be different in act and in motive from what 
she has been represented to be, to come 
forward and state it, and to present and dis- 
cuss the moving facts of the situation. 

But the presentation of Germany's position 
in the present war and the revelation of its 
aspirations and life are not my ultimate 
object in preparing these letters — and es- 
pecially in addressing them to you. I have 
a larger motive than that. In my concluding 
letter I shall presume to suggest a line of 
action that is open to the United States in 
her present unique position, by following which 
we may take advantage of our leadership 
among nations to effect national disarmament 
and forever banish war from the world. 

In conclusion, I wish to state that it is 
not part of the purpose of these letters to 
take direct issue with the attitude of our 
government and its administration; not in- 
tentionally, at least. I have no personal 
quarrel with the Department of State; and 
I do not propose to discuss or question the 



Introduction 19 

sincerity of its position or that of President 
Wilson, who announces his purpose to main- 
tain a strict neutrality. 

If the stand of the United States be not 
impartial in the present desperate inter- 
national situation, and if your interpretation 
of the accepted rules of war be unfair, a 
more definite criticism will be applied to 
your position and action than any I might 
assume to make. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

Robert J. Thompson, 
American Consul (Resigned). 



ORIGINAL LETTER TO SECRETARY 
OF STATE 



American Consulate, 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany, 
September 17th, 1914. 

Hon. W. J. Bryan, 

Secretary of State, 
Washington, D. C. 

Dear Mr. Bryan: — 

Events have developed so rapidly since 
August 3rd, and so continuously, that I 
no more than find time to write of them 
before they seem trivial and ancient in com- 
parison with the more recent and important 
occurrences. 

I wish to report to the Department, however, 
my efforts and their results in the direction 
of assisting representatives of the American 
Press to forward important statements to 
their respective papers and the people of the 
United States. 

On August 29th, John T. McCutcheon and 
James O'Donnell Bennett, of the Chicago 
Tribune; Irvin S. Cobb of the Saturday 



22 England and Germany 

Evening Post and Philadelphia Public Ledger; 
Roger Lewis of the Associated Press; and 
Harry Hansen of the Chicago Daily News, 
came upon the consulate, having been con- 
ducted by the German military authorities 
to Aix-la-Chapelle from the battlefields 
along the Belgian-French frontier. The com- 
manding officer here declined to issue them 
passes to go into Holland or to return to 
Belgium, but placed no restrictions upon their 
passing further into Germany in the direc- 
tion of Cologne and Berlin. They elected 
to remain in Aix-la-Chapelle, from which 
point they could mail articles to their pub- 
lishers through the nearby frontier-town of 
Vaals, Holland. 

Their experiences and observations with 
and in the rear of the German army in 
Belgium, from Brussels to Beaumont, and 
from there to Aix-la-Chapelle, covered a 
period of ten days and will, before this reaches 
you, be published in their respective papers. 

Dn arriving at Aix-la-Chapelle, where the 
English and American papers were to be 
seen, they were shocked to note the innumer- 
able reports of atrocities and brutalities 
alleged to have been committed by the 
German troops in the territory which they 
had just traversed. 



Original Letter to Secretary of State 23 

These gentlemen, who at the time of 
their arrival in Europe were decidedly 
anti-German in sentiment and convictions, 
at once prepared a joint statement which 
I advised them I would use my best 
efforts to have forwarded by wireless to 
the Western Union Telegraph Company in 
New York for transmission to their several 
papers. 

Evidently these well-known American jour- 
nalists were not so much concerned by 
their desire to send exclusive and startling 
stories to their papers as they were moved 
by a sense of fair play for their fellow country- 
men, who were entitled at least to a clearer 
picture of things than they were receiving 
from an interested source, controlling the sole 
means of communication between Germany 
and America. It seemed to me, likewise, 
most important that the American people 
have as much of the truth as it is pos- 
sible to convey to them on the one most 
terrifying feature of this present war; hence 
I had their statement telegraphed to Berlin 
for forwarding by wireless telegraphy to 
America, if possible. 

I have observed that various appeals are 
being made to America to break its neutrality 
and join the opponents of Germany on account 



24 England and Germany 

of the alleged inhuman conduct of the German 
military, its cruelty and drunkenness. I am 
here on the frontier where the Belgian 
reprisals began and am to some extent 
personally familiar with the circumstances 
leading to the commencement of these acts. 
In a broad sense, it may be said that the 
German, and especially the German soldier, 
does not get drunk. There are, of course, 
exceptions to this rule; but in support of 
the military law against supplying soldiers 
with alcoholic drinks, the Government has 
issued a decree fixing a severe penalty for 
soldiers drinking intoxicants as well as for 
persons giving intoxicants to them. 

There has been a terrific outcry in Germany 
against the unexpected participation of the 
Belgian civil populace in the war. This 
outcry did not arise without definite cause. 
On requesting a pass from the Garrison 
Commander at Aachen, then General von 
Korpff, to send a messenger into a nearby 
Belgian village to investigate the shooting 
of a British subject, this gentleman related 
to me, under great mental stress, instance 
after instance of German officers and men 
being shot and killed while at rest, by 
farmers, even by young girls, whom he 
stated fired upon them while passing a 



Original Letter to Secretary of State 25 

glass of milk or water. He gave me these 
details at the moment in order to impress 
me with the danger of sending a messenger 
into those districts, Baelen-Dolhain, at that 
time, August 17th, and his inability to guaran- 
tee protection for my messenger. 

The reprisals made by the German military 
have been severe and possibly beyond modern 
precedent, but I am convinced that when the 
facts are brought out they will expose causes, 
which, under the circumstances, may have 
extenuated, if not justified, their conduct, 
as the Germans claim. 

In Liege I spent the night as guest at the 
"Duesseldorfer Lazarett," a temporary war- 
hospital, opened August 17th in the main 
University building there, by three prominent 
ladies of Dusseldorf . 

The hospital referred to was attacked on 
the 20th of August, three days after it was 
opened and thirteen days after the entry of 
the German troops into Liege. According to my 
examination the building was the object of 
rifle volleys from two sides, the effect of the 
bullets showing in the broken windows. As 
a result of this attack thirteen men, principally 
Russian, English and Belgian students, were 
caught and executed in the University Square, 
and twenty buildings, principally lodging 



26 England and Germany 

houses, from whence the shooting came, 
destroyed. 

I hope to be able, if time permits, to in- 
vestigate certain charges of the murder of 
sleeping, wounded and defenseless German 
soldiers, made against the Belgian villagers 
and farmers just over the frontier between 
here and Liege. 

I will send you, from time to time, some 
illustrated German papers. 

You will pardon this semi-personal letter. 
I can write more freely in this manner. 

With great respects and regards, 

Robert J. Thompson, 

American Consul. 



RESIGNATION 



[Publishers' Note: In response to the foregoing letter an 
instruction was received from the department directing Consul 
Thompson to cease all investigations and discontinue all reports 
as suggested — the result of which was the resignation of Mr. 
Thompson as shown in the following despatch.] 



American Consulate, 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany, 
New York, January 20, 1915. 

To the Honorable, 

The Secretary of State, 
Washington, D. C. 
Sir:— 

I have the honor to tender herewith my 
resignation as consul at Aix-la-Chapelle. 

"Great stress of work in connection with 
my position as Consul at Aix-la-Chapelle, 
both official and of a semi-official nature, 
has prevented my disposing of the question 
raised by the Department instruction, order- 
ing me to discontinue investigations and to 
make no reports on the subject of war reprisals. 

"I come now to this matter and if it appear 
that I have delayed my action, the more 
important duty of aiding distress and attend- 
ing to the heart-breaking demands of scores 

(27) 



28 England and Germany 

of applicants of every nationality must be 
my excuse. 

"A truly neutral person or state can have 
neither fear nor favor for the truth, and under 
such unparalleled circumstances as those 
brought about by the war, a consular officer 
who might be stationed at the center of this 
great war vortex, will either tighten up on 
the technique and formalities of his position, 
or go outside of them, to meet in every way 
and as best he can, the new conditions and the 
pressing demands made upon him. In the 
midst of such extraordinary circumstances 
no call of duty appeared more definite to me 
than that of the keenest observation and 
accurate report as to the motives and acts 
of the combatants. If a neutral state cannot 
separate its belligerent friends and bring 
peace between them, it must, I feel, auto- 
matically take the position of referee, or 
umpire, or sink into obscurity as unequal to 
its role as a World Power and an influencing 
force upon the wider welfare of mankind. 

"There should be no German, French, 
Belgian, or English in America at such a 
moment as this. There should not be, but 
unfortunately there are. We have over 
twenty millions of citizens of German blood 
in our country, even though their consan- 



Resignation 29 

guinity dates from the days of the colonization 
of Pennsylvania, at a time when the English 
language was known in that territory only 
in official circles. Germanic source or blood 
constitutes more than one-fifth of the present 
composite body of America, almost one- 
fourth against one-eighth or less of English. 

"Must the accident of blood and of language 
bar these people, with their undying memories 
for the Fatherland, from a square deal? 
There is no German blood in my veins and 
I thank God I am an American, but I 
should lose my pride of race if I thought the 
American national spirit of fair play were 
dead. Even if the operation of international 
law, which indicates the rights and duties of 
belligerents and neutrals, permit or force us 
to become allies of the Allies in the matter of 
supplying them with men and vast supplies 
of munitions of war; (to say nothing of 
reservists, I am advised that some three 
thousand of the Canadian troops in England 
now are American boys); even if this be 
true, which is not denied, it is no less the 
duty of the United States to umpire the 
game, standing out fearlessly for the exposi- 
tion of the truth and the administration of 
justice. 

"In withdrawing from the service at this 



30 England and Germany 

time, and under the circumstances, I may 
be permitted to state once more and specifi- 
cally that I regard it as the special duty and 
privilege of a neutral country, t. ough its 
representatives and otherwise, in ary manner 
fairly open to it, to ascertain the truth and 
facts in a great human epoch-making event 
like the present war; not alone to ascertain 
the truth, but to record it for the benefit of 
history and the final accounting which must 
be rendered to mankind — an accounting 
which in all probability must eventually be 
made through the mediation of that same 
neutral country, conferring upon it the great- 
est privilege and moral responsibility, per- 
haps, in the history of nations. 

"The instruction seems gratuitous and 
trivial in view of the importance of the sub- 
ject, and the opportunity afforded you, of 
having a disinterested bystander on the spot, 
who might learn, if not the truth, at least 
certain aspects of the truth, concerning the 
extreme and appalling charges laid at the 
door of a people so intimately and senti- 
mentally connected with America as are the 
Germans, by others of equal intimate rela- 
tionship. 

"I cannot be alone in the thought that the 
most important consideration in our present 



Resignation 31 

national life is to know the truth, and as 
much of the truth as we can possibly learn 
on the subject of this war, and first and 
primarily of its causes and beginnings. If 
I may be the instrument, even in the smallest 
degree, of supplying or setting into proper 
alignment only a few phases of this vast and 
chaotic panorama in which the hearts and 
souls of millions of our fellow countrymen 
are involved, almost equally with the actual 
participants, my withdrawal from the service 
for such purpose will indeed be a small 
sacrifice." 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

Robert J. Thompson, 
American Consul (Resigned). 



GERMANY'S RISE AND ENGLAND'S 
DECLINE 



Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany, 
October 29, 1914. 

To the Honorable, 

The Secretary of State, 
Washington, D. C. 
Sir: — 

I have the honor to present the following 
for your consideration. 

I think it the duty of every person who feels 
he can throw light upon the ethics and 
meaning of the present great war to come 
forward and speak; and I hope that my ob- 
servations may be of help to the government 
in determining its attitude in the future. 

For my part I am a great lover of France — 
the Lafayette monument in Paris, erected 
upon my initiative, and the high order of the 
Legion of Honor decoration which has been 
conferred upon me will attest to that. My 
blood and ancestry are English. I have lived 
in France, in England and in Germany. I 
think my viewpoint is clear and that I am fair 
and unprejudiced. I suppose it is of little 

(33) 



34 England and Germany 

importance how I may look at this titanic 
human convulsion ; but I have seen the thing 
coming on for years, events to which mankind 
runs forward but which occasion surprise and 
wonder when they are realized. 

You may recall my interview in the Houston 
Chronicle of July 23, 1912, sent to the Depart- 
ment at that time and resulting in my transfer 
from Germany to Sheffield, England. I 
repeat it in part, here: — 

"Germany is today the most efficient 
nation, economically, on the globe. Today 
Germany is second only to England as an 
exporter of manufactured goods, the United 
States ranking third. Within five years 
Germany will pass Great Britain in this 
respect and lead the nations of the world. 
The German policy is one of peaceful develop- 
ment of domestic and foreign trade; Germany 
does not seek offense nor seek occasion to 
give offense. But Germany is determined 
henceforth to take a leading position among 
the world powers in the adjustment of all 
international issues, and is determined, es- 
pecially, to press her industrial and commercial 
development to first rank among the nations, 
regardless of any opposition which may be 
aroused by this course in any quarter of the 
globe. 



Germany's Rise and England's Decline 35 

"When the day comes that Germany 
passes Great Britain in the exportation of 
manufactured products, British resentment 
will perhaps precipitate an armed conflict 
between these two great nations. The only 
factor which, in my opinion, may prevent 
it, is the rapidly increasing socialistic senti- 
ment of both peoples. Socialism stands 
opposed to war. Great Britain, during the 
next few years, is going to be socialized to 
an extent that will virtually revolutionize 
the British government. The socialists are 
very numerous and influential in Germany. 
It is possible, perhaps probable, that the 
doctrinal opposition to war of the socialists 
in Germany and Great Britain may prevent 
the armed conflict toward which so many 
observers in both countries, and elsewhere 
throughout the world, have been looking 
forward fearfully during recent years. 

"There is no general wish for war in 
Germany; war discussion there is confined 
almost wholly to army officers, who naturally 
consider a survey of what is ahead as in line 
with their calling, just as they do in France, 
Russia, Japan, and other countries. Foreign 
brokers indulge in some war talk, but the 
substantial interests of Germany — manu- 
facturing, educational, professional — do not 



36 England and Germany 

want war; they deplore the possibility of it, 
but will not on that account be deterred 
from pressing Germany's claim for pre- 
eminence in the peaceful competitions of the 
world as rapidly as her people can make 
that claim good. Most of the talk of war I 
hear in Germany is developed by the war 
speculations of newspapers from across the 
English Channel." 

I have thought that- Germany's unchecked 
and gradual commercial conquest of England 
might in some way affect a revolution of the 
industrial classes of England and thus bring 
on war, rather than that it would come as 
it has. I believe the broad statement may 
be made now, in full truth, that Germany, 
the youngest nation amongst the great powers, 
and even still in infancy — at the commence- 
ment of its career — has, to all practical pur- 
poses, attained the position of conqueror and 
leader of the world from the standpoint of 
the present economic ideals and standards of 
mankind. I do not think there is the slightest 
doubt of this. I have been in one of the great- 
est typical industrial centers of England for 
two years and I have been in the same com- 
parative centers in Germany for six years, and 
one would need to be blind, indeed, to fail to 
see conclusive evidence of what I state. 



Germany's Rise and England's Decline 37 

In my judgment, Germany has fairly and 
definitely won her laurels; and the least 
important of her national institutions, in 
this respect, is her military establishment, 
the thing by which, I think, we falsely judge 
her at this moment, when she finds herself 
compelled to test its efficiency, to put 
it to performance, in holding that which 
she has gained through the arts of peace, 
and maintaining and preserving it for civil- 
ization. 

It may be illuminating to take the recent 
explanations of the British manufacturing 
world for the placing of English orders for 
locomotives in Berlin; viz., that their fac- 
tories, or works, were filled with orders and 
they could not, therefore, make delivery in 
the time necessary to meet the requirements. 
That was the claim. I happen to know the 
facts and they are that many of these factories 
were not at all fully occupied, at the time. 
More particularly, however, all of them were 
suffering from arrested development. In 
other words, they were operating on the 
basis of several decades back, and had not 
the initiative to keep abreast of their German 
competitors in the way of expansion, as, 
according to my observation, is the case with 
the English manufacturer generally. The 



38 England and Germany 

grandfather's method of doing business there 
and of meeting the demands of the world 

i is no fiction, but a deadening reality. 

During the years 1912 and 1913, in many 
respects the most prosperous England has 

i ever experienced, commercially, her emigra- 
tion was the most pronounced and extensive 
in her history. To a very large extent the 
y English workman had abandoned hope of 
any betterment in his own country; and the 
continuous desertion of the mother country 
by high class mechanics, going to Canada 
and the colonies, was growing daily more 
and more embarrassing in the way of main- 
taining efficiency of workmanship. In the 
period of Germany's phenomenal advance- 
ment in manufacturing and agriculture in 
the past thirty years, many millions of acres 
of agricultural land in England have reverted 
to the sheep range and hunting park. Eng- 
land, who had become dependent upon the 
outside world for food, was becoming also 
more and more dependent upon Germany 
for the manufactured necessities of her com- 
plicated and effete civilization — for sugar, 
almost exclusively, for chemical products and 
dyestuffs used in her great textile industries, 
for steel and iron products, and for hundreds 
of different kinds of manufactured articles, 



Germany's Rise and England's Decline 39 

which Germany was making better and 
cheaper than any nation in the world. 

Furthermore, England was looking to Ger- 
many as an example for her hoped-for rejuve- 
nation and renaissance, even to the extent of 
seriously discussing copying her financial 
policy, customs tariff, and her army establish- 
ment with the introduction of enforced 
military service. She had already taken 
Germany's industrial insurance laws as a 
model for her own, she was slowly awakening 
to the wisdom of copying her scheme of 
technical education. A great movement was 
afoot to introduce a net work of waterways, 
similar to that of Germany; and scores of 
municipal delegations were visiting Germany 
annually with the view of improving the 
English cities. The wise men of England 
saw in all this, and in the rapidly approaching 
world leadership of Germany in the manu- 
facture and sale of those goods, which, in 
their production pay wages to workers, an 
inevitable shift and transfer of the financial 
center of the world from London to Berlin; 
and, with the realization of this stupendous 
fact, came the forecast of the automatic loss, 
as well, of her place as the political and 
ethical center of Caucasian civilization. 

By the same token that Germany had 



40 England and Germany 

fashioned for herself a "big stick," in the 
way of her army, to defend herself against 
the weed-like growth and threatened expan- 
sion of Russia, resulting in her being regarded 
as the very apotheosis of militarism, England, 
for her own purposes, had also built her 
"Big Stick" — her navy — a far greater exhibi- 
tion of armament than the German war 
machine. 

One is in as bad a position as the other 
from the standpoint of militarism — excepting 
that with Germany we have militarism at 
home and efficiency, while with England, it 
is militarism of the sea, imperialism and 
growing inefficiency. 

No people have felt this more keenly than 
the English statesmen. They have gravely 
realized that the last and only possible 
chance for England to retain her position 
before the world, politically and economically, 
for another generation, lay in the checking of 
Germany's progress in the arts of peace. To 
meet and pass her in the legitimate operations 
of industrial competition was impossible; 
they saw plainly that England was hopelessly 
outclassed in this field. A way out was found 
in the combination with Russia and France, 
who were racial antagonists and military 
competitors of Germany, and not serious 



Germany's Rise and England's Decline 41 

commercial rivals. By joining these states 
in the enterprise of war, England has moved 
to regain her position as manufacturer and 
banker for the world. 

In my judgment, the violation of Belgian 
neutrality by Germany as the reason for 
England's declaration of war is a sentimental 
i subterfuge, sounding well for English chivalry 
I before the world, but meaning, from the 
beginning, suicide and death to poor Belgium. 
The whole Belgian situation has proved a 
fortuitous circumstance for England, the 
moral value of which has counted enormously 
for her and her allies. 

The German, however, is too naive to 
resort to this sort of politics, too direct and 
simple to lie. He has much to learn, in 
diplomacy. Nevertheless, honesty is some- 
thing, and, in the end, sometimes prevails. 

I would not assert that England has will- 
fully sought the present favorable moment 
for her cause. It came, nevertheless, and 
found her as well prepared as she could ever 
be, with the combined armies of France and 
Russia on her side; and, because of a con- 
scious or subconscious knowledge that here 
was her final opportunity, it became inevitable 
that she should declare war on Germany. I 
do not think there was any more possibility 



42 England and Germany 

of avoiding this than to prevent a collision 
between two locomotives headed for each 
other under full speed on the same track. 

The merits of the case will rest finally 
upon the question as to which is the superior 
civilization, that of Germany or that of 
England — or better, which offers the most to 
mankind. To the American, who judges 
modern Germany by the immigrant who 
settled in Illinois or Iowa forty or fifty years 
ago and did the cobbling and blacksmithing 
for the town, the matter is quickly deter- 
mined, but for those who have witnessed the 
phenomenal development of the German 
people and nation during the last twenty 
years, the thing presents itself in an altogether 
different light. And to him who has had the 
opportunity to study the conditions in Eng- 
land today in comparison with the conditions 
in Germany — economic, moral and political — 
as I have had, the question passes out of the 
field of academic discussion. The one is 
moribund and self-sufficient, the other filled 
with the energy of youth, confidence and 
hope. A thousand years of English civiliza : 
tion and social endeavor, with perhaps the 
best and ablest men in the world at the helm, 
arrays an almshouse, pauper-fed spirit against 
the highest expression of socialistic co-opera- 



Germany's Rise and England's Decline 43 

tion the world has heretofore known. I will 
say, too, that as there is more prosperity, 
order, sanitation, and contentment in Ger- 
many than there is in England, there is 
likewise more liberty and individual freedom 
than critics of Germany admit. Men of 
sense soon learn that police regulations in- 
tended for the comfort and protection of the 
citizen are no more an abridgment of one's 
liberty than is the rule of the camp that each 
man shall fold his own blanket. 

By sheer force in numbers of her opponents, 
coupled with the unparalleled Navyism of 
England, Germany may temporarily lose in 
this struggle for her existence and a place in 
the sun. But if she does lose, it will be the 
same old conquest of conservatism and reac- 
tion against the demonstrated progress and 
betterment of the world. Sad and unhappy 
as the surrender of her position as leader 
amongst the organized states of the world 
might be for England and to us, it would 
come as the result of administrative impotence 
and lack of initiative in her adjustment to 
the economic and sociological ideals of the 
day. By her diplomacy, which has tied her 
up with forces passe, on the one hand, and 
interests undeveloped and unplumbed, on the 
other, she is endeavoring to hold that which, 



44 England and Germany 

according to those rules of the game appealing 
to fair men, she has truly and fairly lost. 

I believe that I am right, and while the 
appearances seem to be against Germany at 
present, her success, in my judgment, will 
sound a great advance in the world of progress 
and the enlightenment of mankind. 

It is my purpose to send you from time 
to time, as I have opportunity to put my 
observations into shape, reports on the phases 
of Germany's diplomatic encirclement and 
isolation, the international crime of surround- 
ing this state, and organizing against her a 
combination of hostile forces that spelled 
war from its very inception. I shall report 
on the much misunderstood subject of German 
Culture, of its real significance and importance, 
to the world; on the matter of German 
militarism as against a form of armament far 
more dangerous to international peaces — a 
navyism that demands a standard equal to 
that of the two next greatest naval powers of 
the world. 

It is an easy thing for the American, with 
his sporting instinct, to say of England: "I 
should like to see her whipped for once." 
But this would mean a new and violent shift 
in the political status of the world. It would 
be like an excision of the vermiform appendix 



Germany's Rise and England's Decline 45 

of civilization, so to speak, which might 
easily threaten the life of the patient. For 
with the downfall of this age-long leader of 
human thought and action the knell of the 
Saxon would indeed be sounded. We occupy- 
no light position. Truth, intellect, science, 
progress, and justice, perhaps, in the abstract, 
are on the side of Germany, yet, sentiment, 
tradition and ethics seem to be with the 
Saxon. What I may say or write is not done 
with a view to exercising an influence on your 
neutrality, it is done in a spirit of full justice, 
and, in large degree, against my feelings and 
sentimental inclinations. 

I see in German dominance a phenomenon 
of the great inscrutable Infinite, which, with 
the clanking juggernaut wheels of Change 
and Progress, advances toward freedom and 
light through death and pain and travail. 
The compensation to mankind must be salu- 
tary, and may be, beyond anything that has 
occurred since the crucifixion. I will close 
this dispatch by quoting a letter from the 
great English historian, Carlyle, written in 
1870: 

"I believe the Prussians will certainly keep 
for Germany what of Elsass and Lorraine is 
still German, or can be expected to re-become 
such, and withal that the whole world cannot 



46 England and Germany 

forbid them to do it and that Heaven will 
not (nor I). Alone of nations Prussia seems 
still to understand something of the art of 
governing and of fighting enemies to said art. 
Germany, from of old, has been the peace- 
ablest, most pious, and in the end most 
valiant and terrible of nations. Germany 
ought to be president of Europe, and will 
again, it seems, be tried with that office for 
another five centuries or so." 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

Robert J. Thompson, 

American Consul (Resigned). 



DIPLOMACY'S ISOLATION OF 
GERMANY 



American Consulate, 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany. 

The Honorable, 

The Secretary of State, 
Washington, D. C. 
Sir:— 

I have the honor to present the following 
brief analysis of the enforced diplomatic 
isolation of Germany and her encirclement by 
a combined military establishment four times 
greater in magnitude than her own : 

When Kaiser Wilhelm sent his famous 
telegram to President Kruger of the Boer 
republic, I believe the present war was fore- 
cast, if not assured. This is the telegram: 
"I express my sincere congratulations that, 
supported by your people, and without appeal- 
ing for the help of friendly Powers, you have 
succeeded, by your own energetic action, 
against armed bands which invaded your 
country as disturbers of the peace, and have 
thus been enabled to restore peace and safe- 



48 England and Germany 

guard the independence of the country from 
attack from outside." That was in 1896. 
When the Boer War came on shortly after, 
j King Edward found the French crying, "Vive 
Kruger!" "To death with the English!" 
"A mort and a bas l'Edouard!" and the same 
sentiment more or less in Germany, more, 
in fact, as Germany was growing and France 
was marking time. These conditions con- 
vinced Edward that the "Splendid Isolation" 
policy of Salisbury might be surrendered for 
a while, and he chose the Kaiser as his 
successor in this role. England's isolation, 
however, was voluntary. The present isola- 
tion of Germany was forced upon her through 
diplomatic strategy, designated by the Ger- 
mans, conspiracy. 

England's mastery of the diplomatic world 
is historic. It is confirmed by the present 
line-up of the European powers against Ger- 
many — accomplished, as leading Englishmen 
assert, at some sacrifice of soul and future 
serenity. The English do not close their eyes 
to the incongruity of their strange compact 
with Russia, nor to their unique alliance with 
France — both nations her ancient and classic 
enemies. The formation of this alien com- 
bination by the emissaries of Edward VII — 
the consummation of this unprecedented 



Diplomacy's Isolation of Germany 49 

diplomatic trade — really precipitated what 
it was intended to guard against, for the 
antagonistic impulse created by it led directly 
to the opening of hostilities in the Armageddon 
raging the world today, and which threatens 
to destroy civilization before it is finished. 

What was the direct and inevitable result 
of the combination? To check the growth, 
by minimizing the power, of a vigorous and 
successful commercial rival. To encompass 
Germany from two sides, and patrol it from 
the offing. How does England expect to 
close the account with Russia, Japan and 
France in case she is victorious? Suppose 
Japan demands the further reward for her 
participation in this affair, of Hong Kong, 
and Russia lays her hands on Persia and 
India. Germany's defeat, as well as her 
success, is likely to spell disaster for England. 

It is not the militarism of Germany that 
is the cause of the war. On the contrary, it 
is the diplomacy of Lord Lansdowne and 
Delcasse in operation, the working out of 
their compact to put the lid on and check a \ 
great and progressive rival — a people whose 
success, whose marvelous development and 
unparalleled advancement, is due to plodding, 
industrious effort, to new and up-to-date 
adaptations of their social forces to the present 



50 England and Germany 

day economic ideals of mankind. To mislead 
the world, to deceive herself, in fact, England 
has brought into the premise of this possibly- 
last chapter of her greatness the justification 
of militarism, autocracy and the violation of 
Belgian neutrality . She would present a nobler 
figure to the world if she would tell the truth. 

It is a peculiar philosophy that will con- 
demn efficiency, be it either in the making of 
cotton goods or cannon. If the German 
army is accredited with being the best in the 
world, it must be charged to those Teutonic 
qualities which have also counted for so 
much of the world's progress in the pursuits 
of peace, and not in any sense to a military 
spirit. 

Germany is said to have led in the prepara- 
tion for war. This is hardly true. Russia's 
standing army in times of peace is more than 
double that of Germany's in numbers; that 
is, 1,500,000 men against 672,000.* Her an- 
nual military budget exceeds Germany's by 
$36,000,000. But that is not all. Menacing 
her on the front, or, at least, if not menac- 
ing her, existing just the same, stood France 
with an army of 620,000 men, and an army 
of 620,000 for France, with her population of 
40,000,000 souls, is equivalent to an army of 

'"Data in this chapter is all taken from Whitaker's Almanac, London, 1915. 



Diplomacy's Isolation of Germany 51 

1,085,000 men for Germany. In other words, 
the military establishment of France alone, 
population for population, is quite 40 per 
cent greater than that of Germany. 

We neutrals should try to be fair, and not 
be governed by our prejudices and senti- 
ments. We cannot close our eyes to facts. 
Russia, with a peace footing army more than 
100 per cent larger than that of the Kaiser's, 
on the one hand, and France with a peace 
footing army 40 per cent (in proportion to 
population) greater on the other, both avowed 
racial and military competitors of the German, 
made it the duty of the Kaiser, and undoubt- 
edly his very highest duty, to prepare, and 
hold himself always prepared for the impend- 
ing, if not inevitable assault. 

I can see it in no other light than that this 
was Germany's contract to civilization, to 
preserve herself, her nationality and her 
culture against the combination of Russia 
and France, and a big enough contract it 
was. She was in a most heroic position before 
the war, facing front and back the combined 
peace footing armies of Russia and France of 
2,100,000 men — three to one against her 
672,000 men. It will be seen that with one- 
third the number of men and half the money 
she has succeeded in maintaining the peace 



52 England and Germany 

of central Europe for a period of forty-five 
years. 

So there you have the situation — the big 
and simple analysis of the German militarism, 
"mailed fist" and "war lordism," which we 
have heard so much about. I give peace 
footing figures only, here, as all others are 
speculative and uncertain. I have already, 
in a previous connection, directed attention 
to the fact that the American regular army, 
which is one-tenth the size of Germany's, 
costs us to maintain it just an even one-half 
the amount that Germany spends on her 
whole army establishment. While the Ameri- 
can people have neither sympathy nor much 
respect for militarism, at home or abroad, 
they will, nevertheless, agree that Germany 
would have presented the aspect of a poltroon 
had she not done exactly what she has done, 
or even more. 

It is probable, judging from the past forty- 
five years, that Germany, of all the great 
powers, the only one to keep the peace — 
the only nation that has not been at war — 
would have been able to maintain this condi- 
tion indefinitely and pursue her destiny in 
comparative quietude and neighborliness with 
France and Russia, had continental Europe 
been left alone. But along about 1898, 



Diplomacy's Isolation of Germany 53 

English diplomacy, in the form of "Balance 
of Power," "Sphere of Influence," "Holding 
His Own," appears in Paris and Petersburg, 
and the isolation of Germany is underwritten 
and sealed — fixed and financed. Shortly, the 
Kaiser sees this vast encircling force, this 
formidable and hostile coalescence, taking 
on another 160,000 men of arms and an ad- 
ditional annual war fund against him of 
$150,000,000. It has seemed to men like 
myself, and to American army officers who 
have spent a year or two at such places as 
Hanover and Berlin, that whatever might 
happen, Germany could, after all, defend 
herself, against the whole of Europe. Neither 
Italy nor Austria count for much in this great 
line-up of forces. Austria has her hands full 
with the Balkans and Italy has, so far, stayed 
out of it. 

Now why this isolation and smothering 
policy of England against Germany? Wars 
don't begin with the firing of the first gun; 
murder is not committed on the spot. Both 
must have their causes, their premeditations 
and preparations. They spring from and 
course along psychological grounds. When 
this entente had been adjusted by the diplo- 
matic cabinets of London, Paris and St. 
Petersburg, against the German Michael, 



54 England and Germany 

and a standing peace footing army of 
2,260,000 men in Russia, France and England 
surrounded him, English diplomacy returned 
to its island home and awaited results. 

Right, here, I think, is where it was in- 
cumbent upon England to fling out a declara- 
tion to the world that she would be no party 
to the protection of Servia from what many 
people consider to be a just and proper 
punishment or, if her underwriting with 
the Czar made this impossible, then the 
contrary, that she would fight, too, if Ger- 
many went to war with her continental 
partners. Unfortunately, she did neither. 
Russia and France knew that England must 
fight and that she had dickered with them 
for this very occasion. It is my belief that 
time and history will place the blame for the 
war right here, on the English alliance with 
Russia. England refused — she could not 
give the assurance to Germany that she 
would keep out of the war if the neutrality 
of Belgium was respected. In his dispatch 
to Ambassador Goshen, at Berlin, August 1st, 
Sir Edward Grey said he could not give 
Germany the promise that England would 
remain neutral on that condition alone — and 
on August 4th, to Sir Francis Villiers, his 
British Majesty's minister to Brussels, a 



Diplomacy's Isolation of Germany 55 

peremptory order was communicated to the 
Belgian government in which England de- 
manded (expected) that Belgium would resist 
by any means in its power the demand of 
Germany to cross her frontiers, and that his 
British Majesty's government would support 
it in such resistance. 

So we have poor Belgium between the 
devil and the deep sea; facing a dilemma 
which could be solved only by her sympathies 
and prejudices. Belgium is an abomination 
of desolation. From the points where the 
promised support of England and France 
met the German advance — say at Dinant and 
in Flanders — it is a nauseating nothingness. 
Where the support was not in evidence she 
still breathes, where it was given there is 
death. And still the Belgians wait daily in 
Brussels and the villages for the coming of the 
English — for the entry of the French and 
Russians. But I do not think, even while 
we weep for Belgium, and stand aghast over 
her condition, the two and a quarter millions 
of armed and trained soldiers, the bristling 
circle of steel, placed around the frontiers of 
Germany as the result of the supposedly 
clever work of Lord Lansdowne and his 
diplomatic confreres, Delcasse and Cambon, 
should be forgotten. That was the monster 



56 England and Germany 

blunder of modern diplomacy. Poor France, 
once again her sons bleed and die for the 
ambitions of little men. 

Here you have four great powers of Europe 
fighting for world leadership, to which they 
think they are all entitled. Russia should 
wait — her time will come. France must be 
satisfied, for her day is past. But for England, 
still the able and clever diplomatic leader of 
the nations, the fight is hers. Her instruments 
are the mythical "Balance of Power," "Spheres 
of Influence," and "Isolation" of her com- 
petitor. 

It would take seventy years for Germany 
to become as thickly settled as Belgium, 
with her normal increase of population, and 
several decades to reach the same ratio as 
Holland. The assumption that she needs 
additional territory for her sons and daughters 
is an error. Her increase in population, as a 
matter of fact, does not keep pace with her 
progress in industry, by nearly 100 per cent. 
It is a punishable offense to preach emigra- 
tion in Germany. (Our American Mormon 
missionaries will testify to this.) Furthermore, 
she herself, under official control, assists the 
temporary annual immigration to her fields, 
mines and public works, of not less than a mil- 
lion laborers — from the provinces of Russia 



Diplomacy's Isolation of Germany 57 

and from Italy. In addition to this, three mil- 
lion female German workers are engaged in her 
fields and gardens during the summer months. 
With her intensive agriculture, her tremendous 
industrial demands, she could absorb the 
entire population of England, and then be 
no more thickly populated than Holland; 
and if she took, in addition to this, the 
population of France, she would have but 
about the same number of inhabitants to 
the square mile as Belgium. Let the legend 
that Germany requires, must have, more 
room for her increasing people, be dismissed. 
That is buncombe and belongs to the Balance 
of Power series of unfounded assumptions. 
Statistics prove that Germany requires im- 
migrants not emigrants. She was isolated by 
her neighbors, not because of a fear of her 
ambition for physical expansion, but because 
her new spirit of nationalism compelled her 
to take a political position as a World Power, 
in accordance with her undisputed champion- 
ship in the real pursuits of modern life: 
science, economics, education and social and 
civic progress; and right here is where it 
seems to me the miscalculation of Germany's 
opponents has been made, and where they 
will fail, even as the church failed to suppress 
and isolate Martin Luther, and the slavery 



58 England and Germany 

sentiment of America miscarried in its efforts to 
bottle the abolitionists and Abraham Lincoln. 

The misconception of the real movement 
in Germany is astonishing. The thought has 
grown up throughout the world that the 
Kaiser, with a standing army of little more 
\J than a quarter the size of that of those 
cordialled against him, has been dreaming of 
going out to annex the rest of Europe. Ger- 
many's dreams of conquest were in the 
humanitarian fields of commerce, of applied 
sciences and beautiful cities, of transportation 
and the liberal arts; and if she is to be beaten 
down, the real spoliation of the war will be 
here, and not over the face of Belgium, nor 
in France, nor in Poland, nor even in Sussex, 
Surrey or the West Riding of Yorkshire. 
Whatever happens in these places can have 
no final effect upon the result, because Ger- 
many's chief progress is an intellectual one, 
and something that is impossible of isolation, 
blockade or bayonet charge. 

Germany turns out the biggest ocean liner, 
two, three, of them. England builds the 
biggest battleship — dreadnaught. The policy 
of German isolation must extend to the sea 
as well as the land. Germany's foreign trade 
increases and approaches that of England at 
terrific speed. She controls the markets of 



Diplomacy's Isolation of Germany 59 

South America, of the near and far East. 
She competes successfully with England in 
Sheffield, Manchester and London; and as 
her foreign trade assumes a magnitude certain 
soon to surpass that of her island rival she 
rushes her naval construction, also, corres- 
pondingly. Now, who was really prepared 
for this war? England, with the combined 
navies of France, Russia, Japan, and a peace 
footing army of 2,260,000 men at her com- 
mand, or Germany, with her regular army of 
672,000 men, her untried navy and her obli- 
gations to hard-pressed Austria on her hands? 
Here you have what we may call the diplo- 
matic layout of the war game, its actual 
frame-up. But I think the combination will 
fail because of its miscalculation of the spirit 
of the German people. Truly there is but 
one thing that would precipitate a revolution 
or uprising in Germany — one thing only — 
and that would be a weakening of the Emperor 
or government in the matter of defense or 
prosecution of the war. Let there be no 
mistake, Germany certainly will not grow 
weary. If the world ever witnessed an 
example of the spirit of all for one and one 
for all in action, it may see it now in the 
people of the imperial, confederated states of 
the German nation. 



60 England and Germany 

The cause of the war then, might justly be 
laid at the feet of Lord Lansdowne, Edward 
VII, Paul Cambon and M. Delcasse, with 
Sir Edward Grey, that astute and masterly 
head of the British Foreign Office and diplo- 
matic leader of the world, as regisseur of the 
performance. Isolation, that was the plan. 
To place Germany by herself. To keep her in 
the shade — out of the sun of international 
politics. To turn the world loose upon her, 
through manufactured alarm and misdirected 
hatred. This arrangement to either suppress 
or destroy the one nation which has become 
a model of civic and social advancement, 
should be exposed and understood, and if it 
is, the American people will not hesitate to 
level the finger of admonition at England 
and France for their part in it. 

I say all of this with reluctance and morti- 
fication, for I love both England and France. 
I believe they are engaged in a hopeless, 
if not, indeed, a wicked cause, measured 
both by the sacrifice and woes they bring 
upon themselves, and their effort to check 
the progress of the world by laying low its 
chief and most brilliant exponent. 

I have wept with the mothers and wives 
of the best young blood of England. I have 
searched the battlefields for the torn bodies 



Diplomacy's Isolation of Germany 61 

of cultured and beloved scions of the first 
families of France, even to the descendant 
of our beloved Lafayette. I have aided in 
the recovery of the wrecked remains of lost 
and killed sons of the Fatherland, and with 
all my love of France, my attachments to 
England, I must confess I could only see in 
it all the fruition of the diplomatic scheme of 
enforced German isolation, which could only 
be likened to an imbecile undertaking to con- 
trol the tides of the sea or the lightning 
flashes of the firmament. 

I regard the endeavor to isolate Germany, 
effectually, to be as futile as an attempt to 
place the lid upon Vesuvius. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

Robert J. Thompson, 
American Consul (Resigned). 



SEA VS. LAND MILITARISM 



American Consulate, 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany. 

To the Honorable, 

The Secretary of State, 
Washington, D. C. 
Sir:— 

I have the honor to submit the following 
facts and comments upon the subject of 
militarism of the sea and land, as expressed 
in the respective armaments of England and 
Germany : 

Over six million acres of our cotton lands 
are put out of commission as a first material 
tribute to "militarism" — but militarism of the 
sea — which has closed the market for some 
three million bales of our standard southern 
crop. Our second tribute is a matter of 
$70,000,000 worth of copper, $25,000,000 
worth of lard, and a score of other things 
which our good people raise or coax from the 
earth, to exchange for German chemicals, dye 
stuffs, toys, cloths, paper, glass, etc. Our 
export trade to Germany, Austria and Russia, 
now practically cut off from our markets 

(63) 



64 England and Germany 

through militarism — of the sea principally — 
is a matter of some seven hundred million 
dollars. 

England, the chief exponent of militarism 
of the sea, had ready and building, at the 
commencement of the war, six hundred and 
seven ty-eight war vessels. Her expenditures 
for 1914-15 were to amount to $257,750,000, 
as a militarist-naval tax on the people of 
Great Britain, required for the maintenance 
of the Royal Navy. The guns of the Queen 
Elizabeth super-dreadnaught fire a projectile 
of 1,950 pounds, and a broadside is a mere 
matter of eight tons of solid steel. The 
personnel of the British Navy is 151,000 men. 
It was this form of militarism that tore 
Copenhagen and Alexandria to pieces — that 
bombarded and burned our own Capitol and 
Congressional Library, at Washington. It 
is the Royal British Navy that made the 
subjugation of neutral and smaller states 
and peoples, all over the world, a fact. Eng- 
land's greatness is synonymous with the 
supremacy of her navy; and its greatness and 
efficiency, no doubt, have saved her many a 
war. It is a fighting machine pure and 
simple. It was created for the purpose of 
attack, essentially. It is not what one would 
designate as the sword of defense of the 



Sea vs. Land Militarism 65 

gentleman, but the weapon of the aggressor 
and super-power. 

I know that the personnel of the navies of 
the world, and that of England, especially, 
combine the finest, bravest, and most honor- 
able men in existence. But, as between mili- 
tarism of the sea and militarism of the land, 
the least formidable and dangerous to peace, 
if not the most romantic, is the latter. The 
one is an away-from-home, interfering, intimi- \ 
dating and marauding affair, the other is a 
hearthstone, home defense institution. 

Being, like yourself, Mr. Secretary, neither 
a military man nor a naval expert, it seems 
to me this is a fair, unprejudiced view of the 
matter. There has always been as great an 
activity amongst the arms and armament 
makers of Birmingham and Sheffield, as there 
has at Essen, or Liege. In this respect there 
has been no difference excepting that a slab 
of armour plate or a 15 -inch naval gun never 
looks as dangerous as a Liege pistol, a Colt's 
revolver, or a machine gun. 

I am convinced that the objection of the 
American people to the so-called German 
militarism is not to the thing itself, but to 
its earnestness and efficiency, the undoubted 
business-like aspect of the German army 
in times of peace, to say nothing of it when 



66 England and Germany 

the nation is armed. But the German army, 
like the German transatlantic liners, Ger- 
man chemical works, German technical 
schools, German science, German industrial 
insurance, German municipal government, 
or German anything, excepting diplomacy, 
would not be the German army at all 
if it did not take itself seriously and 
strive for perfection there as well as else- 
where. Thoroughness is the one prime 
German characteristic, and though these 
people might have the best of everything 
else in the world and not excite fear and 
distrust, so soon as the world realizes or 
thinks the German excels in its war installa- 
tion, it cries militarism, mailed fist, autocracy, 
and indulges in a lot of other epithets which 
mean nothing at all more than that it is 
willing to be beaten in all the genuinely big 
things of life, but in this it doesn't want to 
play. 

America has regarded the German regular 
army from the only standpoint it could judge 
any standing army, that is, from a compara- 
tive point of view, from the troops at Fort 
Sheridan, Fort Leavenworth, or the Texas 
frontier — a group of outcasts, half criminals, 
and ne'er-do-wells. This is wrong. The 
German army is nothing more than a per- 



Sea vs. Land Militarism 67 

fected militia — the soldiers are citizen soldiers. 
Instead of serving two weeks a year in the 
field, and one or two nights a week in the 
army, they serve one or two years, as the case 
may be, and then return to their civil occu- 
pations, their places being filled by new men 
from year to year, as the youth of Germany 
comes to military age. 

In a previous letter I stated that the 
German military establishment was one of 
the least important expressions of its national 
life. This is not quite true, because its army 
is essentially its Sandow, jiu-jitsu, morning 
exercise scheme, It was old Friedrich Ludwig 
Jahn, the father of the Turners, to whom a 
statue stands in the city of Freiburg, who 
met the German spirit for regimented physical 
exercise sixty or seventy years ago, and 
organized the great Turner Bund. Von 
Moltke, Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm I 
used that spirit out of which to create the 
German army. It was originally figured out 
as a plan to bring forth a superior physical 
race. In the present utilitarian age this 
necessity for co-operated effort in the German 
character, even in the most excellent practice 
of physical culture, became the soul and 
spirit of the imperial German army. So, 
as you yourself have seen, the youth of 



68 England and Germany 

Germany, sons of the idle rich as well as the 
unidle rich, princes of the royal families 
as well as the yokels of the field, all but 
criminals (who automatically lose their rights 
to enter the army) and inefficients, have been 
regimented and trained to march, to sing, 
to play, to put the shot, to do the Marathon 
and goose step, to rise in the morning at six 
o'clock and get to bed at ten, to get off into 
the fields and sunshine, and dig in the sand, 
to swim, to jump, to ride, to eat wholesome 
food, to keep clean, and to obey, to work 
together as one man, and incidentally learn 
to shoot. This has been the Kaiser's crime, 
that is the militarism you have been afraid 
of; and do you know that this splendid and 
effective school of German manhood and 
efficiency, of health and virility, has cost the 
German nation just once again the price of 
maintaining our American army, which con- 
tains but one-tenth the number of men 
enrolled in the peace footing army of Ger- 
many? (See Whitaker's Almanac, 1915, 
page 105). 

During my seven and a half years of 
service as consul, in Germany, I have been 
a butt for inquiry from hundreds of pros- 
pective emigrants to America, Canada and 
Brazil. In this time I have never known 



Sea vs. Land Militarism 69 

personally, nor have I ever heard of a single 
instance of a young German wishing to leave 
his country to avoid military service. I 
have personally known hundreds who have 
striven to pass their gymnasium or high 
school examinations in order to limit their 
period of service to one year. Military 
service has accomplished this for Germany, 
in addition to improving its health and 
efficiency: it has implanted into the minds 
of its citizens a sense of duty to the state 
quite inconceivable to the American or 
British mind — it has made a living reality 
of the motto of the Prince of Wales: "Ich 
dien" This, of course, is the modern Ger- 
many you have heard of. What it was prior 
to 1870, when it was composed of a score or 
more of fusty sleepy kingdoms and princi- 
palities, and what I believe the Allies think 
it should be now, is quite a different thing. 
"I serve," is the spirit of Germany today, 
in peace, and it is more than that in war — it 
is a fetish. And the greatest servant of all 
is the Kaiser, typifying in his character, 
more than all else he has been charged or 
accredited with, the spirit and ideals of the 
nation. This is the mysterious spirit of the 
Hive, the Zeitgeist, and national tran- 
scendentalism of the German people. Call it 



70 England and Germany 

militarism, humanism, barbarism or what 
not, in my judgment it is and has been for 
the past twenty years the one great and 
promising phenomenon of civilization, the 
shining hope and assurance of progress of 
mankind. 

England has set herself the task of crushing 
German militarism, of redeeming Christianity 
and Russianizing Eastern Europe. Associa- 
tion with the German individual or with a 
detached group of German individuals would 
make it seem possible, if not easy. But I am 
afraid England does not fully appreciate the 
contract she has taken on. Her militarism 
of the sea should protect her great foreign 
trade and make her secure in her colonies, 
barring, of course, the possibility of her 
eventual defeat by the Germans at sea. A 
full and complete victory of German arms in 
Europe, and even in England, would leave 
the naval question unsettled, because the 
British Empire would still be at home in 
Canada, in Australia or in India, and it 
could raid the commerce of the conqueror 
from the various bases, for an indefinite 
period. Thus would be brought home to 
the world the real importance and fatal 
significance of militarism of the sea, an 
instrument infinitely more opposed to inter- 



Sea vs. Land Militarism 71 

national peace than any strictly military 
organization could be. 

But Germany did not purpose remaining 
at home, either. One of her new national 
expressions was that of international in- 
dustrial and economic supremacy. A few 
years only would have seen her the mistress 
of the world in the matter of foreign trade 
and merchant marine. This was an inevitable 
fact and it was this that forced the rushing 
of her naval construction program — to be 
in a position to protect her enormous and 
preponderating commerce against her defeated 
commercial rivals. England has looked with 
contempt, distrust and indignation upon Ger- 
many for her seeming effort to compete with 
her for the position of policeman of the sea, 
and every new German battleship has raised 
the war scare in England and fixed the 
determination there, faster than ever, to 
"Hold Her Own." She would surrender the 
palm to Germany in industrial, economic and 
civic rivalry, but she would not part with 
the trident. That, like the Church of 
England, had been given by Henry VIII, 
and was as sacred as her money system, her 
weights and measures and her atrocious land 
ownership scheme. 

This purpose to remain the master of the 



72 England and Germany 

sea, is all very well and noble enough. It 
has been the one great saving ambition of 
Britain, but it is not for her to cry "Mailed 
Fist," "Militarism," and all those fearful 
sounding things to the good reason and fair 
play sentiment of the world. If we agree with 
the claim that England and her supreme mili- 
tarism of the sea stand for the restoration of 
Christianity, the suppression of vandalism, 
the crushing of Germany, very well — but as 
neutrals in this terrific cyclone of horror, 
we must get our proper bearings and render 
justice, so far as it comes to us to do so, to 
all sides. 

Militarism of the sea means suppression 
of commerce in time of war. It means the 
suppression of our commerce. It means 
millions of suffering workers in the south. 
It means unemployment for hundreds of 
thousands of non-combatants all over the 
world. It is a part of war and it is fair, the 
least cruel of all forms of warfare, perhaps, 
because the widest in its effect. Whether we 
will or no, it forces the co-operation of every 
neutral in the world. It makes us allies of 
the big tonnage, right or wrong. It is the 
real big stick Mr. Roosevelt was wont to 
talk about so much. If America sees war 
ahead with Japan, England or Germany, let 



Sea vs. Land Militarism 73 

her go to the navy program. No nation can 
fight and upset the world without a navy, 
but it is a certainty, if the present war results 
in disarmament, and that is another moral 
obligation England has taken on, the dread- 
naughts and submarines, the sea mines and 
torpedoes, will assuredly be the first to go to 
the scrap heap. Then what will become of 
India, of Egypt, of South Africa, and the 
new Cyprus? What will become of our 
own imperialism, the Philippines? Militarism 
from the Teutonic standpoint subjugates no 
people. Nor would the militarism of France 
or Russia have brought on the war had it 
not been for the big tonnage of England. 
Even with their vastly superior forces they 
would never have undertaken it, and Ger- 
many, having everything to lose, and not 
so much as the value of a single man to gain 
on the continent of Europe, would have 
certainly avoided it. 

This is the situation, as I see it. The 
Kaiser worked always with the idea that with 
the best, if not the biggest, "big stick" in 
the arena of European military rivalry, he 
could maintain the peace, and for twenty- 
five years he succeeded in doing so, and now 
the glove is on the floor and the German 
nation is battling to save and prove the 



74 England and Germany 

efficiency of her wonderful culture to the 
world. Success or failure for her means 
international political leadership on the one 
hand, or practical destruction on the other. 
It means advance or stagnation. It means 
that Russian, French or English civilization, 
statecraft, shall be the standard of intra- 
social ideals and human welfare for the next 
hundred years, or so. It means that and 
nothing else. The atrocity business, "baby 
killing," "militarism," "navyism," "the 
Kaiser," "scraps of paper," and all the other 
cries of the Powers, do not enter into the 
merits of the contest in the slightest degree. 
They are mere incidents of something so 
vastly more important to us that they will 
be forgotten in the great onrush of events to 
the goal toward which mankind is inevitably 
and irresistibly driven. Let us get beyond 
the diverting incidentals to the main issue. 

England would make this our fight as well 
as hers. In fact, with her control of the sea, 
we automatically become one of her principal 
allies. She would make us a party to the 
attempted isolation of Germany. She would 
have us commit ourselves to militarism of the 
sea as against militarism of the land; she 
would have us join her in her effort to turn 
back the clock of destiny, and aid her in 



Sea vs. Land Militarism 75 

retaining the pennant of leadership which is 
slipping from her mast. We have no naval 
competition with England; ours would be 
with Japan, if with any power, and, besides, 
we have a goodly hostage both for her respect 
of the Monroe Doctrine and for her general 
good behavior in Canada. But the mysteries 
of the foreign office of England are wide and 
deep. Supposing they disclosed an alliance 
with the sons of the Mikado against us in 
case of war with Japan? 

We witnessed a year ago a combination of 
the British and German governments to the 
disadvantage of our Exposition at San Fran- 
cisco, much to our surprise and chagrin. 
Just now this is a very sore point with the 
German foreign office. For they were told 
by England: "stay with us in this matter and 
we will bring about a readjustment of the 
Panama Canal tolls." Perhaps the Hay- 
Pauncefote scrap of paper would be patched 
together. And it was so, much to our credit. 
But the militarism of Japan, the militarism 
of England, or of the Kaiser, could no more 
affect us than the militarism of Russia, with- 
out the introduction of militarism of the sea. 
Germany and England were much more 
intimately connected before the war than is 
the United States and England. England 



76 England and Germany 

was Germany's best customer, and Germany 
was England's best customer, in trade. They 
are connected by ties of blood relationship, 
marriage, quick transportation and a thousand 
industrial interests, and yet England turned 
her naval ally, Japan, loose upon Germany 
in the Pacific. 

So, in this moral support and sympathy 
business — and God forbid we should go any 
further — it behooves the American people 
not to be carried away by every clap trap, 
holier than thou talk, on the part of any one 
of the belligerents, of England, Germany, 
France or Russia. None of them wanted the 
war — unless it was Austria in her purpose to 
punish the assassins of her Archduke, and 
Russia, in her thousand year ambition to 
expand to the south and west, finding 
her opportunity in a powerful combination 
with France and England against Europe's 
one bulwark against her encroachment — 
Germany. 

Let us give the Kaiser and so-called German 
militarism a square deal. If we are to umpire 
the game, let us, at least, balance our preju- 
dices and sympathies and keep an open mind. 
Militarism is militarism, whether on land or 
sea. If part goes all must go. And in the 
great world family of nations, secret or open, 



Sea vs. Land Militarism 77 

offensive and defensive, alliances should be 
regarded as an international crime. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

Robert J. Thompson, 
American Consul (Resigned). 



CERTAIN ASPECTS OF GERMAN 
CULTURE 



American Consulate, 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany. 

To the Honorable, 

The Secretary of State, 
Washington, D. C. 
Sir:— 

I have the honor to submit the following 
observations on certain points and phases of 
the present somewhat mooted question of 
German culture: 

The hard sound of C does not exist in the 
German language. Its letters have only one 
sound and words are pronounced as they are 
spelled. A spade is called a spade in Ger- 
many — a thimble is a hat for the finger, or 
Fingerhut, and a telephone is a far-speaker, 
or Fernsprecher. So, very naturally, in this 
land of fiction, fable and song, and above all, 
of truth, culture could be nothing else than 
Kultur. It is not likely that the world will 
lapse into complete forgetfulness of the inven- 
tion of printing at Mainz by Gutenberg, a 

(79) 



80 England and Germany 

science which is at once the foundation and 
sub-structure of all permanent culture of 
the modern world, and so essential to the 
moral campaign now waging against the sons 
of Teuton — "the baby killers," as Mr. 
Churchill has so facetiously dubbed them. 
I think that gentleman must have forgotten 
his kindergarten, a bit of German "Kultur." 
He forgot, or did not know that the children 
of England were crying for German toys this 
Christmastide — that they were missing Little 
Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Hop o' My 
Thumb, Santa Claus, and the German Christ- 
mas tree. Every town of any size in Germany 
possesses, among other institutions of "Kul- 
tur," a doll hospital. All the cradle songs and 
lullabies, which have more than an ephemeral 
life, are born, too, in Germany; also sung 
there. It is the paradise on earth of children, 
Germany. No child or boy is ever flogged 
in a German school. She has no David 
Copperfields, no begging children, nor "news- 
boys." She has no slums, and her submerged 
world is a negligible and diminishing quotient. 
A defense of German culture would be 
about as senseless an undertaking as an 
argument on the advantages of food as a 
nutriment. Nevertheless, it will be interest- 
ing to contemplate certain features of it at 



Certain Aspects of German Culture 81 

this time, in their bearing on the war and the 
present and future state of human evolution. 
Viewing Culture from a certain angle I 
suppose God has produced no finer product 
on this earth than the English gentleman. 
He is no myth, but a splendid, shining reality, 
and certainly a model for mankind. The 
Germans have been the first people of the 
world to recognize this and endeavor to copy 
him. There can be no doubt that a large 
majority of the young British officers who 
have gone to the front were induced to do so 
by a chivalrous sense of duty toward their 
sacrificed ally, Belgium. The spiritual refine- 
ment and moral culture of the English gentle- 
man is without equal in this world, in my 
judgment. This is natural, however, and the 
logical result of individualism, the spirit of 
England. Nevertheless, this is a utilitarian 
age, an economic-bread-and-butter-day, where 
suppression of self and surrender and im- 
molation to the general good is proved to 
be the best, not only for the individual, but 
for the state and for mankind. And this 
proof exists today in the so-called German 
"Kultur"; a thing which must be judged or 
measured by its expression and results. 

For example, of 1,000 Russian soldiers in 
the field, 617 can neither read nor write; 



1/ 



82 England and Germany 

of a like number of Servians, the number of 
illiterate is 434; for Belgium, 93 out of 1,000 
are illiterate; for France, 30; for England, 
10, and for Germany, in order to find an 
illiterate soldier there must be 2,000 to draw 
from; that is, of the so-called "Huns and 
Barbarians," the percentage of illiteracy is 
one-fiftieth of one per cent. Illiteracy is 
also one of the things verboten in Germany; 
and its opposite, literacy, is ueber alles. No 
one has ever heard about the "cultured 
classes" in Germany. It is this self -named 
group in America and England which is very 
worthily seeking to reform and uplift those 
not in their order. In Germany the vast 
industrial class attends to this itself. The 
effective temperance movements spring from 
the trade and labor organizations. They 
make their own night schools. They claim 
and forward the legislation calculated for the 
good of the workers in all classes. 

The socialists of Germany, composed largely 
of the foregoing group, have a matter of 5,000 
local societies in the various centers of the 
Empire. They publish ninety daily, and 
several weekly newspapers, as well as a 
number of monthly magazines. The com- 
bined circulation of these socialist papers 
numbers nearly 2,000,000 daily, with advertis- 



Certain Aspects of German Culture 83 

ing and subscription returns of nearly 
$5,000,000 a year. The principal organ of the 
socialists, "Vorwaerts," has a circulation of 
200,000 daily. 

Now, whether we have any interest in 
socialism or not, or whether we understand 
or believe in it, makes no difference. Every 
intelligent person knows that any political 
doctrine, be it socialism, republicanism, de- 
mocracy or progressivism, is a philosophy, or 
set of principles worked out for state or 
government administration, and that socialism 
is peculiarly a proposition embracing modern 
and reform ideas. So, in this manner, we 
arrive at a fair conception of one of the 
principal aspects of German Kultur — the 
solid reading and economic studies of the 
great majority of the German industrial 
classes. 

The German government has a Minister 
of Culture. He is the head of the schools of 
the country, the state and the municipal 
theatres, as well as the experimental branches 
of the government mines and research institu- 
tions. There are a dozen cities in Germany 
owning and supporting finer, more artistic, 
opera houses and theatres than anything that 
may be found in New York or London. The 
recently built Opera House at Cassel, a town 



84 England and Germany 

of 150,000 people, cost $1,250,000, and has 
been pronounced a much more beautiful and 
suitable structure for the purpose than the 
Opera House at Paris. It is certainly ahead 
of anything in the United States or England. 
Small towns of twenty -five or fifty thousand 
inhabitants possess municipal theatres that 
would put the playhouses of New York and 
Chicago to shame. These state and municipal 
theatres are a part of the Kultur and educa- 
tional system of Germany. They are con- 
trolled to a certain extent by the Minister 
of Culture. Shakespeare for the classic, 
Ibsen and Maeterlinck for the modern, are 
played more often, and consequently find 
greater appreciation in Germany than in 
England, or Scandinavia, or elsewhere. In 
fact, there will be more Shakespearian repro- 
duction in a town like Hanover than in the 
city of London. The scheme, of course, of 
state and municipal theatres is to keep the 
taste of the people on a bit higher plane than 
our vaudevilles and the music halls of Eng- 
land afford, and the best plays and grand 
operas may be seen and heard for from ten 
cents to two dollars, according to the purse 
of the attendant. 

It surely is superfluous to touch upon the 
subject of music as an evidence of German 



Certain Aspects of German Culture 85 

culture. Nearly all the great composers and 
masters of history were German. They have 
embraced the whole field of music with but 
one exception, and that has been our synco- 
pated American rag. The superiority of the 
Salvation Army street music in England must 
be acknowledged, likewise. It is undoubtedly 
the best of its kind in the world. In Sheffield, 
the center of the British musical world, the 
Citadel Band competes with the Coldstream 
Guards for public concerts. 

The merest outline of German culture, that 
is to say, culture of a German origin, would 
alone require many volumes. That she reigns 
supreme in the intellectual world is a universal 
acknowledgment, and this credit cannot now 
be taken from her, even though she is engaged 
with those same intellectual forces in the 
most terrific and disastrous war any one has 
ever dreamed of. 

Indeed, the solidarity of the German people, 
apparent in the present war, is an evidence of 
how thoroughly their institutions have im- 
pressed them. All of her forces, intellectual, 
spiritual, financial and physical, are formed 
into the most absolute unity at this time. 
Her seventy million people are as one, let 
there be no mistake, as One individual, in 
the war. Her scientists, philosophers and 



86 England and Germany 

teachers are for it to a man. Her musicians, 
artists, authors and composers are in the 
trenches. Her priests and churches have 
unanimously blessed it. Her money is back 
of it to the final Pfennig. They regard the 
war as a struggle for the promotion of their 
civilization and culture, and to them, more 
than ever to Islam, their war is a holy 
one. 

Every child in the German schools was 
requested by their teacher to prepare a 
Christmas box for the soldiers just before the 
holidays. These boxes were to contain a few 
sweets, some cakes, cigars and cigarettes — 
but particularly a letter from the donor to 
the unknown warrior who might receive it 
in the trenches. There is a bit of German 
system serving at once to render a senti- 
mental moral encouragement to the men at 
the front and at the same time open an 
opportunity for even the children to partici- 
pate in the war of the Fatherland. While 
America was sending Christmas ships to the 
children of Europe, including Germany, of 
course, literally millions of Hansels and 
Gretels, of Fritzes and Irmas, were preparing 
their gifts fur die tapfere Soldalen in the field. 
And when the German arms are more than 
usually successful the church bells peal from 



Certain Aspects of German Culture 87 

one end of the empire to the other, the cities 
and villages are decorated with flags, and the 
schools are given a half holiday, after — 
always after — the children have sung their 
national songs, "Die Wacht Am Rhein" 
and "Deutschland, Deutschland, Ueber 
Alles." 

These are the children, indeed, of Guten- 
berg, Kepler and Kant, the future Beethovens, 
Mozarts and Wagners of the world. They are 
the young Haeckels, Hegels, Fichtes, Goethes, 
Schillers and Hauptmanns of science, philoso- 
phy and music. They are the Paul Ehrlichs 
and Robert Koches, the Mergenthalers, Froe- 
bels and Frauenhoefers (who brought the sun 
down to the earth through the spectrum) of 
tomorrow. German culture is not confined 
to the universities, the laboratories, nor to 
Weimar, Dresden and Beyreuth. It is every- 
where evident in her beautiful and model 
cities, in her forests and fields, her modernized 
and sanitary workshops and factories — in the 
fitness of her people for labor and usefulness. 
The Kaiser is a bookbinder by trade, the ^ 
crown prince is a carpenter. 

According to Professor Cooley of Chicago, 
the Kingdom of Prussia contains approxi- 
mately three million boys between the ages 
of fourteen and sixteen. Some two millions 



88 England and Germany 

of these are at work. They quit school and 
go to work for the same reason that the 
American boy leaves his school books on the 
completion of his grammar grade — to become 
a breadwinner and get a start in life. But 
when the American boy leaves school that 
is pretty much the end of it. The state gives 
his education no further thought. German 
culture demands a different system than this 
for its boys. When a boy between the ages 
of fourteen and eighteen leaves school to 
take a job, or learn a trade, he still has 
open to him a large number of vocational 
schools where he spends one or two days 
a week continuing his culture or general 
education in the technique of his chosen 
trade. The city of Munich, with a pop- 
ulation of say half a million, supports 
over fifty such vocational or continuation 
schools. 

Much has been said of an absence of 
initiative in the German owing to his sur- 
render to the state. Nothing is less true than 
this. Perhaps one of the most distinct 
evidences of initiative is that of invention. 
In my career as Consul, at Hanover, a city 
of some industrial importance in Germany, 
and at Sheffield, an English industrial center 
of world-wide importance, the consular records 



Certain Aspects of German Culture 89 

will show not less than five American patent 
applications submitted by German inventors 
in the Hanover district, as against one in the 
Sheffield district. My remembrance is that 
the ratio was as ten to one. I place it con- 
servatively at five to one. Every man of 
the thousands of German soldiers today 
bearing the Iron Cross has a story of indi- 
vidual initiative to tell. The Germans possess 
initiative plus, more than any people I have 
ever seen. Frank Putnam, a brilliant student 
of sociology, says: 

"Their initiative and culture has lifted 
them irresistibly upward through an adaman- 
tine crust of political officialdom toward a 
full measure of workable, personal liberty. 
It has substituted for the age-old scholastic 
servitude of modern minds to Greek and 
Latin classics, the universal, shrewd and 
thorough study of the earth we live on and 
the life of the present and tomorrow. It is 
giving effect, in the equitable distribution of 
material wealth and all that stands for, to the 
mighty visions of the poets and philosophers 
of the classic age of the German people. It 
has produced a people who stand and walk 
erect, almost without exception, who breathe 
deeply, who dress neatly, work long and 
steadily, and live with wise economy, and 



90 England and Germany 

who front life with supreme confidence in the 
future of their nation." 

It is German initiative and culture that 
has made her cities wonders of artistic and 
cleanly beauty, which attract increasing mul- 
titudes of visitors, residents and students 
from every part of the world. It has given 
the city of Berlin more square yards of 
asphalt than any other civic center on the 
earth. It has excited thousands of inventions 
and improvements in applied science. It 
has placed Germany to the forefront of the 
nations of the earth, in the solution of those 
intra-social problems which seem to be the 
special purpose and object of organized so- 
ciety. It has brought her away from and 
above the entanglements of political govern- 
ment, as understood by the American mind. 
It has accepted the solution of the questions 
of human and political rights, and gone on 
to the practical problems of learning how to 
live and make the most of life. While the 
American and English politician and leader 
is fighting the windmills of the Rights of 
Man, the Crosses of Gold, and Crowns of 
Thorns, the German, with really as great a 
degree of personal liberty as any of us, has 
turned his face to the sun and is lifting, 
lifting himself and his state higher and 



Certain Aspects of German Culture 91 

higher among the galaxy of successful 
peoples of the world to the position of 
Supernation. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

Robert J. Thompson, 
American Consul (Resigned). 



ATROCITIES ON THE FIELD AND 
IN THE PRESS 



American Consulate, 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany. 

To the Honorable, 

The Secretary of State, 
Washington, D. C. 
Sir:— 

I have the honor to submit the following 
report touching on the subject of reprisals 
in the war zone of Western Europe: 

One of the most remarkable things about 
the present war is the fact that practically 
every disinterested, thinking neutral, who has 
come into contact with the German military, 
either in Germany, Belgium, or France, even 
though ignorant of German ideals or institu- 
tions, and prejudiced against her through 
this ignorance, has needed but a few hours, 
or at most, a few days, to reverse his judg- 
ment and conviction more or less completely. 
Undoubtedly there are exceptions to this 
statement, but I myself know not a single 
one and I have had the privilege of meeting 

(93) 



94 England and Germany 

many persons under these circumstances. 
Calumny, even though permissible on the 
part of a belligerent, is the meanest, and one 
of the most effective, weapons in warfare. 

Strange enough the neutral commission 
which goes out to report on alleged brutalities 
and atrocities on the termination of a war, 
never or seldom sends a report. There were 
a number of such commissions sent from 
Europe to investigate the charges made 
against the Bulgars and the Turks at the 
close of the Balkan War. Their reports are 
still uncompleted. The same may be said 
of South Africa and the Boer War, and, to a 
very large extent, you may be sure this will 
be the case with respect to the conduct of 
the German troops, and, I dare say, the 
Russians and French as well. 

Many of my friends in England have asked 
me to explain to them the origin of the 
reported bitterness and hatred of the Germans 
for England. It is this — the facility with 
which England has smirched the German 
character, from that of the Kaiser to the 
meanest trooper, in the eyes of the world, 
and especially in the eyes of those who would 
normally be in sympathy with him, by 
its prolific atrocity, brutality and bestiality 
stories. I am convinced that the fiery resent- 



Atrocities on the Field and in the Press 95 

ment of the German toward England is more 
the result of this systematic, all-embracing 
world-campaign of mendacity and calumny, 
even than the awful fact of her rushing in to 
brain and destroy him at the moment when 
he is engaged in a life and death struggle 
with the Russian colossus straining to gar- 
rote him from the rear, with France, keen, 
purposeful and expert, seeking to rapier him 
from the front. Indeed, it cannot be long 
before the world, before America, will see and 
appreciate the heroic, if not superhuman, 
effort Germany is making for its life against 
this deluge and hurricane of foes. 

I suppose no two journalists in America are 
more respected and trusted than John T. 
McCutcheon and Irving S. Cobb. These two 
gentlemen, in company with James O'Donnell 
Bennett, Roger Lewis and Harry Hansen, 
representing, respectively, the Chicago 
Tribune, Associated Press and the Chicago 
Daily News, were pushed into Germany 
rather unceremoniously, and as semi-suspects, 
along about the end of August. They all had 
a grievance against Germany, more or less, 
for the treatment they have experienced at 
the hands of the German military authorities 
in Belgium. Their complaint, however, was 
professional and not personal. They felt 



96 England and Germany 

that they were bottled and were afraid they 
could neither get out of Germany themselves, 
nor be able to send reports off to their papers. 
Cobb appeared in Aix-la-Chapelle in a 
butcher's leather jumper, and a pair of felt 
slippers. He is not a handsome man even 
when seen on Fifth Avenue; but when he 
came into the Consulate, unshaved and 
unwashed, for a period of ten days, he was 
cursing everything German from the Kaiser 
to the ordinary "Kannonenfutter," and he 
looked like a Bavarian charcoal burner. 
Lewis had left $900 in gold in an open suit 
case in the Palais Hotel in Brussels. Hansen 
had been on his honeymoon trip and did not 
know if his wife was in England or Germany.* 
Bennett and McCutcheon were feverish in 
their desire to get to London. They had all 
left England some three weeks before to 
strike the trail of the Red Terror, and were 
on the scent of the "mad dog" of Europe. 

If these colorful details seem rather paltry 
and trivial to introduce here, I present them 
as a simple preface to the very rapid convic- 
tion these gentlemen arrived at respecting 
Germany and her military activities — in Bel- 
gium particularly, after witnessing them, 
individually. Notwithstanding personal griev- 
ance, because of deprivation, discomfort and 



Atrocities on the Field and in the Press 97 

interference by German army authorities, 
they retained their birthright, as real, open- 
minded, fair-play Americans; and, as soon 
as they compared notes and found all of their 
experience alike, they got together, alone in 
their room at their hotel, and wrote as briefly 
and as tersely as they could a joint statement 
refuting the English, French and Belgian 
circulated atrocity stories that were filling 
the columns of the press of the world. You 
will recall that I reported their experiences 
in some detail to you in a previous despatch. 
Their statement follows: 

"Western Union, New York, for Associated 
Press, signed Lewis; Ledger, Philadelphia, 
Cobb; News, Chicago, Hansen; Tribune, 
Chicago, Bennett, McCutcheon. In spirit 
fairness we unite in declaring German atroci- 
ties groundless as far as we are able to observe. 
After spending two weeks with the German 
army, accompanying troops upward hundred 
miles, we unable to report single instance 
unprovoked reprisal. Also unable confirm 
rumors mistreatment prisoners or non-com- 
batants. With German columns: Lande, 
JLouvain, Brussels, Nivelles, Binche, Buissiere, 
Hautes-W T iherie, Merbes-le- Chateau, Solre- 
sur-Sambre, Beaumont, without substantiat- 
ing single case wanton brutality. 



98 England and Germany 

"Numerous investigated rumors proved 
groundless. Everywhere have seen German 
paying for purchases, respecting property- 
rights of individuals, according civilians con- 
sideration. 

"After battle Buissiere found Belgian 
women, children moving comfortably about, 
day after Germans captured town. 

"In Merbes-le-Chateau we found one citizen 
killed, but unable confirm lack provocation. 

"Refugees with tales atrocities unable sup- 
ply direct evidence. 

"Belgian Burgomaster Solre-sur-Sambre 
voluntarily discounted reports cruelty in sur- 
rounding country. 

"Discipline German soldiers excellent as 
observed. No drunkenness. 

"To truth these statements we pledge 
professional, personal word. Please repeat 
back last three words, care American Consul, 
Vaals, Holland." 

These gentlemen were not of the refugee 
crowd that rushed out of Belgium into Eng- 
land and France and Holland ahead of the 
invading forces of Germany. They were left 
behind; and none of those neutrals who 
remained on the field, at least none I have 
met, have, as yet, been able to confirm the 
hysterical and irresponsible stories of atroci- 



Atrocities on the Field and in the Press 99 

ties sent out of London. Donald Thompson, 
the Kansas war photographer of the New 
York World, who was arrested a dozen times 
by the German military authorities, wounded 
once by shrapnel, and present in thirty odd 
engagements, covering pretty much all of 
Western Belgium, said to me that he learned 
of no single case of brutality or unprovoked 
reprisal on the part of the German troops. 
This man was being paid a large sum of 
money, both by the New York World and the 
London Daily Mail for war photographs, and 
atrocity stories, as well as pictures, were at 
a premium. The baby with its hands cut 
off, and the nurse with amputated breasts 
were always in the town or villages just 
ahead of him, until, finally, these two particu- 
lar atrocities reached London, in violation of 
all pathological laws of strangulation and 
bleeding to death. They have been sought 
for religiously by many and Bernard Shaw, 
who spent much time endeavoring to locate 
them, says that when he was finally told 
they had gone on to Archangel by way of the 



Note. — Since arriving in America I have met a wide-eyed guileless 
English lady, with the very truth shining from her face, who has 
assured me that this particular atrocity — the baby with its hands 
cut off — was living with her own mother near Blackpool, England; 
and a French friend with whom I have even had business^ relations 
for a period of three years tells me the child is with his aunt in Winni- 
peg. I am certain they both believe what they say. 



100 England and Germany 

Arctic Sea, he was compelled to abandon the 
search. 

I have spent much time myself in seeking 
for German soldiers alleged to have been 
mutilated, and atrocitied by the Belgian 
populace. They, too, were not to be found, 
certainly not by me, and of the members of 
the Medical Association of the West Rhine 
Province, which met in Aix-la-Chapelle in 
October, I could find none who had personal 
knowledge of such cases. Undoubtedly most 
savage severities were applied on both sides 
and all sides, but these things cannot enter 
into the merits of this great struggle as a 
determining factor in the judgment of neutral 
people. War itself is the great atrocity and 
that is enough, God knows. The man, or 
men, whom history will make responsible 
for this war will also be responsible for 
Belgium. Lord Roberts raised the one sane 
voice against the atrocity campaign in Eng- 
land. He said: "Let us not forget our con- 
centration camps and raids of fire in South 
Africa and what the world said about that. 
We have only to fight the Germans in such a 
way that, win or lose, they will respect us 
when the war is over." 

The nurse-with-her-breast-cut-off-by-Ger- 
man-soldiers' story originated in Edinboro, 



Atrocities on the Field and in the Press 101 

and the girl who concocted it has since been 
convicted by the courts of that good town. 
The sentence should have included a goodly 
number of London editors and American 
correspondents; but, unfortunately for the 
peace of mind of the world, the court fell 
short of convicting, for libel, of the perpe- 
trators of the alleged crime, but rendered 
judgment because of the grief the girl had 
caused the parents of the mistreated nurse, 
who, strange enough, was her own sister. 

England is the home of melodrama, and 
in view of this, and the demands of the 
newspaper reading public, the cheap theatre, 
music hall, and football millions for that 
kind of matter, which, to the shame of the 
British censor, was allowed to go uncut, the 
judging world must look elsewhere for the 
truth. 

I repeat, the blue-eyed Saxon, the proud 
Prussian and the German people, all hate the 
English more for this campaign than if they 
were to whip them back across Belgium and 
the Rhine. The German officers and soldiers 
at the front, have only praise for the English 
troops for their bravery and fairness on the 
field of battle. 

My friend, Mr. C. H. Wheeler, of the 
Chicago Tribune, came to Europe for the 



102 England and Germany 

purpose of fetching a thousand Belgian 
orphans, the harvest of the German invasion, 
back to open homes in America. The number 
was fairly modest, considering the tales of 
the London press and correspondents. That 
there were no orphans to be had, makes no 
difference. The world keeps merrily on 
devouring these noble tales of the sensation 
mongers of newspaper row in London. Had 
Mr. Wheeler gone to the East End of London, 
to Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, and a few 
other places in England he could have 
brought back 10,000 waifs, victims of what 
may more rightly be considered the present 
real atrocity of the world — British industrial 
conditions. I proposed this to Mr. Wheeler 
at the time, but he said the American people 
would be satisfied only with war orphans — 
from Belgium. 

Even now you see neither hungry nor 
freezing children in Belgium — you see many 
of them in Britain. There is no German 
Landwehr man who would not divide his 
last crust and ration with a Belgian woman 
or child. Under the German social system 
hunger and unclothed children do not exist. 
That also is verboten. But if there were 
starving and suffering children in Belgium 
the condition might fairly be attributed to a 



Atrocities on the Field and in the Press 103 

state of war. In England that condition is \ 
the regular, unnoticed horror of Peace. Cal- 
loused against her own inability to correct 
these evils, deaf to the cries of those who 
wish to draw her out of the awful slough 
of administrative impotence, she points her 
finger toward the Germans and prints, in 
her great illustrated papers, faked pictures 
of them carrying Belgian babies on bloody 
lances. 

This is the moral warfare of England, with 
her world cables, her world mails, and her 
practically universal language. This is the 
chivalry of warfare her Conan Doyles, Arnold 
Bennetts and H. G. Wells' write about, on 
which they make plea for American sympathy. 
And it is disgusting and unworthy of a great 
people. It is because of the foregoing facts, i 
partly, that I feel that the American people j 
have been stampeded in their conviction and | 
sympathies. The war will continue long 
enough for the world to cool off and anathe- 
matize the real offenders — long enough for a 
readjustment of sympathies and sentiment — 
at least such as may have been based upon 
the "Atrocities." 

It was as sure and easy for England and 
the Allies to capture the favorable sentiment 
of the world, they having the cables, mails 



104 England and Germany 

and press for the moment, as it was for 
Germany, with her military preparedness to 
throw the sphere of operations into the 
territory of her opponents. The "Atrocity" 
guns and "Militarism" mortars of the Allies' 
press have been more effective, indeed, on 
this side of the Atlantic, than the Krupp 42's 
in Belgium and France. 

Some weeks ago the London Graphic 
printed a double page picture of a score or 
more of bridges destroyed along the river 
Meuse, with the caption: "The work of the 
German army in Belgium." The facts were 
that the Belgian and French pioneers had 
blown up every bridge from near Aix-la- 
Chapelle, on the German frontier, clear up 
the river as far as Verdun, in France, and 
not less than a hundred of them have been 
partially, if not completely, restored, already, 
by the German army. Military necessity 



Editor's Note. — Mr. Thompson writes us: "Since arriving in 
America I have listened to one of Mr. Elmendorf's travel lectures, 
during which that gentleman threw several pictures of Liege on the 
screen. Amongst them was a view of the University building. Mr. 
Elmendorf remarked that this, along with the other buildings shown 
were totally destroyed. This is not at all true. They are untouched 
excepting for a few window panes which were broken by bullets in 
the University building. I slept in that building on the twenty- 
eighth of August, and visited it later, the fourth of October, 1914. 
The destruction of buildings in Liege would not equal in loss the 
amount of a fair-sized fire in Chicago, such as causes public comment 
for two or three days only. This is mentioned merely to indicate 
the unconscious dissemination of exaggerated and false statements 
by presumed authorities. 



Atrocities on the Field and in the Press 105 

constructs as well as destroys, but such 
statements make good moral shrapnel against 
the sons of the Kaiser, and so we have to take 
it, requiring as we do, news and war pictures. 

The moral responsibility for the desecration 
and destruction of churches would be difficult 
to place. It is certain that where engagements 
or battles did not take place the churches are 
intact, and in good shape. I have photo- 
graphed German soldiers at prayer in these 
same churches, and witnessed the Kaiser 
participating in the services. But where they 
did take place in towns or cities the place at 
once and automatically became a citadel and 
fort under military law and the highest point 
of vantage for observation and signaling was 
invariably the church, whether it was a 
thousand years old, and decorated with 
masterpieces of Rubens and Van Dyke, or 
six months old, and plastered with machine- 
made statuary from Neuilly, Paris. 

Obviously, if a people purposed to save its 
churches from an attacking army, they should 
exercise as much intelligence, at least, as the 
partridge, which instinctively seeks to beguile 
the hound away from its nest. France took 
her churches away from God some few years 
ago and added them to the list of government 
property; and, anyway, God doesn't seem to 



10G England and Germany 

be much concerned with the present war; 
for the good people of Belgium, France, 
England, Russia, Germany and Austria, and, 
I doubt not, Servia and Turkey, are holding 
simultaneous intercessionals to Him for suc- 
cess in killing their Christian neighbors. 
I am sure, if what General Von Zweel, com- 
manding the German forces before Rheims, 
told me was true, that the French were 
observed signaling their artillery from the 
cathedral tower, and that he sent several 
parley emissaries to warn them, without 
effect, then the desecration was first com- 
mitted by our French friends, and they were 
alone responsible for forcing the bombard- 
ment. I think it is fair to say they were the 
inciting cause. My observation during the 
past several years has been that the "Hun" 
has as much respect for churches, generally, 
as the "Frank." 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

Robert J. Thompson, 
American Consul (Resigned). 



THE BLOOD OF AMERICA 



American Consulate, 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany. 

To the Honorable, 

The Secretary of State, 
Washington, D. C 
Sir:— 

I have the honor to submit the following 
studies on the subject of the * 'Blood of 
America," and the part contributed thereto 
by the German: 

The contribution of Germany to that 
marvelous composite which forms the Ameri- 
can has been great almost beyond calculation, 
but not of modern Germany, that Germany 
we see today fighting for the results of her 
new national life. The hordes of German 
immigrants that passed through the broad 
and open gateways of America in the earlier 
days have long since dwindled to trickling 
streams of relatives of the composite American 
and to artists, scientists, and commercial 
representatives. Out of that older supply 
of German blood, and running into the 

(107) 



108 England and Germany 

second, third, fourth generation, etc., there 
should be no less than twenty-five million 
souls in the United States, who spring through 
direct, or indirect descent, from full or mixed 
German parentage. It may be truthfully 
said that this enormous and much mixed 
element in our blood has never, heretofore, 
had occasion to express itself as a solidarity 
with but a few local and insignificant excep- 
tions. The German immigrant to America 
sprang almost entirely from the humbler, 
more ignorant peasant population of the 
various kingdoms, principalities, etc., of the 
old defunct German confederation. They 
came as refugees from apparently hopeless 
political and economic conditions, and they 
were absorbed by millions into this composite 
body. Beyond the second generation little 
is left to distinguish their origin besides the 
name and possibly present harking back in 
sentiment to the vine and fig tree of the 
Fatherland. 

In the year 1750 there were, in the colony 
of Pennsylvania, over fifty thousand German 
residents and settlers. Now, according to 
the rule used by statisticians, in estimating 
the growth of population, in a new and 
progressive country, these figures may be 
doubled for each twenty-five years. On this 



The Blood of America 109 

basis there would be, at the present time, 
over five million Germans, or persons of full 
German blood in or coming from the state 
of Pennsylvania alone. It happens that in 
this instance we have figures of an early date. 
The question was at that time discussed in 
the Pennsylvania colonial assembly as to 
whether the proceedings of that body should 
not be conducted in the German language. 
It was shortly after this that the Mecklenburg 
declaration of independence was issued by 
German patriots, at Charlotte, North Caro- 
lina. This antedated the Philadelphia decla- 
ration by one year. Up to 1871, no proper 
record was kept by the United States Govern- 
ment of immigration, but the largest immigra- 
tion we have ever had came to us from 
Germany. And based upon more or less 
actual figures, a fair estimate is reached of 
the astounding fact that nearly one-third of 
the white blood of America is today purely 
Germanic; one -quarter Celtic, one -eighth 
Scandinavian, a considerable percentage of 
Dutch, Italian, French, Spanish and Russian, 
and finally about one-eighth of what we call, 
in the commonly accepted sense of the term, 
Anglo-Saxon. 

It is true, and possibly fortunate, for us, 
that we are possessed today of English laws, 



110 England and Germany 

language and institutions, generally, a fact 
due to the control of the colonial govern- 
ments, courts, schools and other institutions, 
by England. Interwoven into the history 
and growth of the country, like threads of 
gold, are the names of Washington, Jefferson, 
Hamilton, the Adamses, Jackson, Fremont.. 
Lincoln, Lee, etc. But when the tie between 
England and the colonies was finally severed 
in 1790, a new race and blood product was 
born into the world. It is a myth, a legend 
and a mistake to look upon England as the 
mother country. The American people are, 
in the matter of purely blood relationship to 
Europe, less English than they are Scandi- 
navian, and more German than anything else. 
Nevertheless, our impetus, or progress and 
civic development, was received from this, 
at the time, leading nation of the world, 
England, and what we have of good, as well 
as evil, we have largely from her. Our much 
praised political freedom, along with our 
unemployed; our opportunities for success 
and advantage as an individual, parallel with 
the muddling, inefficient effort to advance 
the general welfare; our immense success in 
spots, and lamentable failures in other direc- 
tions; these are the results of national ideals 
inherited from England. There is something 



The Blood of America 111 

new in this respect, however, in the world, 
and if we, like England, close our eyes to it, 
much the worse for us, as it may be for her. 

It seems for Germany that God endowed 
this particular part of the world with an 
indigenous atmosphere of human fecundity, 
a fact which has enabled the Germans to 
send out streams of life to all parts of the 
earth, and to increase their population, even 
now at home, more rapidly than any similar 
number of people anywhere. This, of course, 
refers only to increase by native birth. In 
those primitive days, when, according to 
Gibbon, the German forests were teeming 
with barbarians, the Angles occupied Briton, 
the Franks and Burgundians, Gaul, the Lom- 
bards, Upper Italy, and later the millions to 
America, to Brazil, Australia, Africa and 
Asia; all proving that one of the charac- 
teristics of the Germans has ever been the 
so-called "Wanderlust." "Aus aus in die 
weite, weite Welt, dort wo du nicht bist, dort 
ist das Gluck." 

Up to 1870 the German had no real nation- 
ality. He was a poet, a philosopher, or a 
soldier, peculiarly adapted to absorption 
wherever he might find himself. But today 
all is changed under the inspiration and 
guidance of one of the dominating great 



112 England and Germany 

masters of men, and by one of those phe- 
nomenally rare processes of nature, he arises 
a rejuvenated race. The gods have given 
Germany a new youth. That great Drang 
nach Aussen, that age old, pathetic and never 
dying Wanderlust, which for centuries resulted 
only in the building up of other lands, has at 
last been dammed, and from this great and 
inexhaustible reservoir of enterprise slie has 
launched a thousand ships and forces, directed 
to the uttermost parts of the earth for the 
occupation thereof, as a World Power and 
economic entity. 

With a scientific and purely business-like 
administration of the affairs of the people, 
where duty is the first consideration of citizen- 
ship and "rights" a proper second, she stands 
today, after a brief career of forty years, the 
most brilliant and unparalleled example of 
the effectiveness of government, so-called, 
perhaps in the history of man. 

It appears to me that Germany is organized 
on the principle of the people being the stock- 
holders, and the government the board of 
directors, of a great industrial concern. The 
question of government, in its ethical sense, 
resolving itself into a matter of the direction 
and control of the natural resources and 
productive forces of the country for the 



Tke Blood of America 113 

greatest good of all, with the overworked 
shibboleth of the rights of man, solved, 
practically a century ago, being left to the 
academician and demagogue, while real Ger- 
many, with her modern team-work and 
practical applications of socialism — not to 
forget her administration by trained and 
specialized experts — has quietly and surely 
1 into the lead amongst the nations of 
earth. 
The ideals of man today are economic, and 
ermany is astride, armed cap-a-pie, of this 
supreme fact of modern life. Her savings, 
through the investments of industrial in- 
surance funds, already form the treasure of a 
nation. Over twenty million workers stand 
under the mantel of this protection with 
resources of more than three billion of dollars. 
If her canals and navigable rivers were given 
to the United States in like proportion, as 
regards length of water courses and area of 
land, they would extend in twenty parallel 
lines across the continent from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific and in forty parallel lines from 
Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. There is a 
greater freight tonnage on the river Rhine 
alone than on all our great lake system. Her 
prosperity and material progress are such 
that she must employ some three millions 



114 England and Germany 

of female workers in the fields to garner the 
harvests, so plentiful through intensive and 
scientific cultivation, an element in her life 
that contributes enormously to the health 
and virility of the race. I might enumerate 
a hundred of things, like the German marine, 
education, chambers of commerce, railroads, 
municipal improvements — I could speak of 
these things and many others, and they would 
show but the modern and up-to-date organiza- 
tion as a really new force in the world — a 
state administered on business principles, and 
a state, not old, but one just entering upon 
and at the commencement of the fruition of 
successful achievement. Germany may be 
defeated in war but she is already the victor 
in the real rivalry of the states of the world 
in peaceful competition. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

Robert J. Thompson, 
American Consul (Resigned). 



THE ATTITUDE AND DUTY OF 
AMERICA 



American Consulate, 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany. 

To the Honorable, 

The Secretary of State, 
Washington, D. C 
Sir:— 

I have the honor to suggest for the con- 
sideration of the Department the following 
proposals respecting the attitude and duty 
of our government in relation to the present 
war in Europe. 

A suspended judgment on the war is the 
important thing for America. Difficult as 
this may be, under the circumstances, it is 
the one great desideratum for the United 
States. The coincidental fact that coupled 
with a preponderating sentiment of the Ameri- 
can people against the German, there exists 
likewise a condition which makes us a large 
and powerful contributor to the forces of his 
opponents, possibly even to becoming the 
determining factor in the outcome of the 

(115) 



116 England and German]/ 

conflict, makes it doubly incumbent upon us 
to exercise great caution in taking a positive 
position, lest we be unfair. 

The various Foreign Offices of Europe make 
out their cases under the published title of 
the White, Yellow, or some other Book of 
this or that country. Each proves its own 
contention, that the immediate, if not entire, 
responsibility for the opening of hostilities 
rests upon the other party. We take our 
choice, perhaps, according to our instincts, 
sympathies, prejudices, or, if possessed of 
average fairness of mind, following such 
information as we may obtain, be it interested, 
or disinterested. The following expression is 
cited as illustrating the American's attitude 
of neutrality: "Sure I'm perfectly neutral, 
I don't care which nation licks Germany!" 
Now the fact that the German, as an in- 
dividual, is more of a personal favorite with 
the American than is the Englishman, would 
indicate that our position is not predicated 
on favoritism or purely sentimental inclina- 
tion. 

The thought exists very generally through- 
out America that Germany precipitated the 
war, or that, if she did not do that, she, at 
least, was in a position to prevent it. That 
may be true or not, but the same claim may 



The Attitude and Duty of America 117 

be made of Austria, Russia, France or Eng- 
land. There is little doubt that any of those 
five powers could have checked hostilities, if, 
indeed, not even prevented them, altogether. 
It seems that both Germany and England 
did try this. My conviction is that neither 
of these powers desired war, though a success- 
ful war offered advantages to both of them — 
to England in the maintenance of her fore- 
most place as a World Power, and to Germany 
as a release from the pressure and restrictions 
being put upon her by the Entente. 

However, the chief question now for the 
United States is what we can do to prepare 
ourselves for and to aid in bringing about 
peace, and a peace that cannot again be 
easily disturbed. It is not impossible that 
the eventual decision of this war may lie 
with us. Owing to our wealth, power, and 
advanced place as a world force, we should 
automatically come to the position of final 
peacemaker and arbiter of the nations at 
war. If this be true, it is of transcendant 
importance that we have a clear national 
vision and comprehension of the fundamental 
causes and events of the war, unaffected by 
prejudices, sympathies or misinformation. 

It will be of no avail, nor lead to any real 
solution to point to Servia's assassination of 



118 England and Germany 

the head of a neighboring state, nor to 
Austria's peremptory demands on Servia. It 
will not answer to point to the hostile and 
threatening mobilization of Russia against 
Austria and Germany, and the latter's swift 
movement across Belgium to the North Sea, 
and France seeking to balance, in a measure, 
the tremendous odds forming against her, 
by her mobility and preparedness. 

All these things will be of no avail. Each 
nation is justified in its own conscience for 
its action. We must not overlook this. 
These people are very highly civilized. They 
are all firmly convinced that God and Right 
are on their side. Their hearts are full of 
human love and honor. They are the victims 
of a vast and fatal miscalculation, a system 
of international rivalry, and a soulless Machia- 
vellian foreign office — of intrigue and barter. 
A long, educational, political campaign and 
eventual plebiscite must be had for the most 
insignificant change in the internal policy 
of a nation. Its foreign relations and power 
to make war are as much in the hands of one 
man, or a small group of men, today, as they 
were in the time of Caesar or Peter the Great. 
And this is likewise true, though in less 
degree, perhaps, of us. 

What, then, are we to learn from the war? 



The Attitude and Duty of America 119 

What are we to gain? Will the end fix forever 
the solution of the question of national 
armament or disarmament? 

Shall we be able to learn whether, or no, 
we must become a part of a great world 
contest for military power, on sea or land? 
Whether the gauge of greatness of a people 
shall really be in their dreadnaughts and land 
military establishments — whether, in fact, 
the determination of England to maintain 
her place as mistress of the sea, or Germany's 
purpose to remain the chief continental 
political force have justified, in any way, the 
great expenditures the world has witnessed, 
or the enormous loss of life now taking place. 
If we shall be able to predicate our own 
future from these present events, that may be 
worth while to us. 

But greater than all may be our oppor- 
tunity, at this moment, to direct the future 
course of international ambition and inter- 
national ideals. In this respect we still 
occupy the favored position, and should make 
the most of it. We have a supreme and 
magnificent duty and work before us; and, 
according to our real nobleness of mind and 
foresight, we can perform this duty. How 
insignificant and paltry, then, must be the 
attitude of small partisanship. We must, 



120 England and Germany 

if necessary, rise above the trammeling level 
of so-called international laws, which bind 
us, as an unwilling, though neutral, partici- 
pant in the war, and drags us along, with- 
out voice or power, toward the tremendous 
solution of this final problem of the relation- 
ship of the nations of the world. 

I am told that in the State Department 
there was great agitation and apparent con- 
fusion on the third and fourth of August of 
last year, that the one ray of light and 
satisfaction existing there in those fatal 
hours was the vista of a great opening for 
American business and export trade. Be 
this as it may, what an opportunity there 
was for Mr. Wilson to then and there have 
placed the United States on a plane that 
would have made these belligerent friends of 
ours to pause and realize there was a force 
in the world greater even than their dread- 
naughts or Krupp mortars. 

The declaration of American neutrality 
should have taken the form of an act of 
Congress, and it should have been of a charac- 
ter comporting with the bigness of the war 
and the issues which may come out of it. 
We should have announced, not from the 
State Department, but as an expression of 
all the people, a super-neutrality. We should 



The Attitude and Duty of America 121 

have protested against the war to every 
nation, and as fast as they became involved, 
no matter what their Yellow, White, or Blue 
Books might say, we should have withdrawn 
our representatives from those countries and 
closed our ports entirely to their commerce, 
ships and cables. That would have been a 
neutrality which would have allowed us to 
formulate the future great Peace Pact of the 
world. To introduce, when the moment 
arrived, the proposal for an international 
constitution, or world contract, out of which 
would naturally evolve those world courts of 
Law and Equity and Arbitration, of which 
we have dreamed, and endeavored to promote, 
without the foundation — necessary for any 
competent court — an existing statutory, in- 
ternational law. The great biological decree 
and law of nature, that might is right, is but 
another name for International Law, or the 
Law of Nations — gloss it over as we may. 
The principles and precepts of these hazy 
international regulations must ever have, 
under present conditions, their final adjudica- 
tion at the cannon's mouth. And this is 
because each nation interprets the so-called 
rules of international law according to its 
own particular traditions, prejudices and 
interests. A high international court, supreme 



122 England and Germany 

in the matter of the relations of one nation 
to another, could only be founded upon a 
genuine international law, and such inter- 
national law is not now a fixed institution. 
Statutory law is as necessary a precedent to 
the formation of a competent court as city 
ordinances are to a police court. We can 
never, therefore, have such international tri- 
bunals as we have been endeavoring to pro- 
mote at the Hague and elsewhere, until we 
first create a real international law, and such 
a law must eventually take the form of an 
international constitution, or world contract. 
Such a contract embodying even the very 
first and most primitive rules of international 
law, which presumably would be acceptable 
to all nations, would be sufficient to auto- 
matically create the great need for an inter- 
pretation of such rules, in their application 
to questions of facts and equity arising be- 
tween the nations. With such a beginning 
the development of an international statute 
to meet the problems of relations between 
the nations might be assured. 

However, we did not rise to the occasion. 
We looked backwards fifty, one hundred, a 
thousand years for precedents and rules for 
a stand that would serve to eliminate us 
from a part in this upheaval and readjustment 



The Attitude and Duty of America 123 

of the relationship of nations. Mr. Wilson 
and you, Mr. Bryan, threw away the op- 
portunity, in this first instance, to lay the 
foundation for the much dreamed of and 
hoped for federation of the world. 

But is it too late, even now, to strive for 
this end? I do not think so. In the articles 
I have written on the causes and merits of the 
controversy, between England and Germany 
especially, I have been moved, particularly, 
by the wish to show the equities of the situa- 
tion from the German side, not with the wish 
to excite a reversal of American sentiment, 
per se, but to prepare the public mind for a 
clearer and fairer judgment than it can now 
render. 

So far as the end of the war is concerned, 
there is no indication of it anywhere. Italy 
and Roumania are not the solution. Ger- 
many is impregnable on her own territory, 
and impregnable against the world. Against 
her, on the other hand, stands a force ap- 
parently impossible of destruction or defeat. 
It resolves, itself, therefore, into a proposi- 
tion in physics — the collision of two irre- 
sistible bodies. Now, these are our own 
people. What can we do to save them from 
themselves and one another? If we wait 
until one or the other cries "Enough," we 



124 England and Germany 

will wait too long. Dreadnaughts, aeroplanes, 
submarines and Zeppelins are new elements in 
warfare. Their great power for destruction 
demands also new and unusual methods 
toward peace. Are we to wait until two thou- 
sand pound cargoes of nitro-glycerine are 
dropped on the city of London? I shall be 
frank and say I am convinced that the 
Germans hold the trump card in the fight, 
not in a general way, but through specific 
knowledge — applied to the means of war, 
and that, through the demonstration of a 
superior and more rational civilization than 
any other state has so far shown, the merits 
of the contest, so far as this goes, are on her 
side. But if this, or any other superiority 
in offence, results in the destruction of Eng- 
land, or France, or of Germany, and we 
might be the means of preventing it, and did 
not do all in our power to do so, the fault of 
omission on our part would be great, if not 
so great as the crime of commission on the 
part of any one of the belligerents. 

Therefore, I propose that a peace commis- 
sion he at once formed by Congress, to be com- 
posed of our two ex-presidents and three others, 
who shall be authorized to confer at once ivith 
the powers at war with the view of bringing 
about a cessation of hostilities, and that they 



The Attitude and Duty of America 125 

be further delegated to propose the complete 
disarmament at sea and on the land of the 
several powers of the world. It will come to this 
eventually. Why not rise to the occasion and 
prepare for it now? 

In view of this duty, existing now, or ahead 
of the United States, it is of supreme im- 
portance that, whatever our reason tells us, 
as to the virtues of the great controversy, we 
check and suppress our sympathies and 
prejudices, and refrain from weakening our 
position, or making ourselves impossible as 
the final forces which shall determine the 
direction and course to be taken at the 
settlement of the war. 

We cannot go back to the ententes and 
alliances, to the annexation of Herzegovina 
and Bosnia, the assassination of Ferdinand, 
the ultimatum of Austria, the mobilization of 
Russia, the breach of Belgian neutrality — 
we must look solely to the future, and that 
future must be an assurance to mankind that 
neither Foreign Secretaries, Kings, nor Presi- 
dents, may ever again upset the peace of the 
world, either through ententes and alliances, 
or superiority in armament, on the land, at 
sea, or in the air. 

There are several conditions in Europe, at 
present, we should understand: First, neither 



126 England and Germany 

of the chief belligerents are thinking of peace, 
and would probably repel any ordinary effort 
to introduce the subject. In Germany there 
is a supreme and exalted confidence in the 
favorable outcome of the war to them. The 
same may be said also of the feeling in Eng- 
land. Each one regards it its duty to defeat 
the other and does not, as yet, question the 
final issue. These conditions we would have 
to face. So much greater might be the success 
of our efforts. 

As to the feeling of the belligerents toward 
us, it is simple enough. The Allies know 
they have the sympathy at present of the 
American people, generally, and they con- 
sider this as a great moral, if not material 
asset. Germany witnesses the matter with 
stoicism, and a recognition of the technical 
justification of our position. She has full 
confidence in our fairness, and feels only that 
she has been misrepresented and misunder- 
stood, and that time will set her right. 

Germany does not, nor did she ever wish 
to make Belgium a part of German territory. 
A treaty of peace such as Germany may dic- 
tate to England will probably result in the 
restoration to Belgium of her sovereignty — 
the repayment to Liege, Brussels and Ant- 
werp and her other cities and provinces, of 



The Attitude and Duty of America 127 

the war tributes exacted from them, and when 
the final accounting is made, Germany will 
not disappoint the world in her generosity 
to this crushed and unhappy state. She 
wants no more from Belgium, even now, than 
she asked of her, as a life and death necessity, 
on the third of August, at the commencement 
of the war. 

The moral, practical and Christian forces 
of the United States of America are now 
being weighed in the balance. Shall we be 
found wanting? Or shall we rise to this 
occasion, supreme in our history, and which 
shall never pass our way again? 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

Robert J. Thompson, 
American Consul (Resigned). 



Neutralizing agent. Magnesiun 
Treatment Date: ^ 2001 

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Cranberry Township. PA 16066 

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